Pesach in the Ghetto - Mima'amakim 1:17

Rav Oshry was asked two questions before Pesach concerning coping with the lack of food while at the same time trying to keep the various eating restrictions that come with the holiday.

The first question was whether people would be allowed to eat kitniyot if they became available, despite the general custom not to eat them. Rav Oshry ruled, based on the Chatam Sofer, that in a שעת הדחק one would be allowed to consume kitniyot, provided that he washed them to ensure that there was no grain mixed in with them.

The second question was more complex. Some of the Jews who worked in the forced labor camps had found potato skins and wanted to mix them with some flour in order to produce matzah. Since fruit juices mixed with flour do not produce chametz, this theoretically could have worked. However, since the skins were dirty they wanted to first clean them, and they were concerned that by introducing water into the mix that would actually reverse the situation, whereby the water and flour would mix and the juices of the potato skins would serve to speed up the fermentation process and thus the mix would definitely become chametz. Rav Oshry advised, based on the ruling of Rav Avraham Dovbear Kahana Shapiro, that they wipe the skins clean with a cloth and then bake matzot from them, thus avoiding the introduction of water.

מי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ

לז"נ קדושי עמך ישראל שמסרו נפשם על קדושם השם

Clothing of the Deceased - Mima'amakim 1:3

Rav Oshry was asked about a case where the Jews in the Kovno Ghetto were ordered daily to provide 1,000 people to work on a nearby airport for the Nazis. One erev Rosh HaShana, they failed to produce the requisite number of workers, and the Nazis entered to ghetto to find Jews to force into labor, and along the way they killed a number of individuals (including one who was holding his machzor). The Nazis then demanded that the Jews dig graves for their deceased brethren and offered the clothes of the deceased to those digging the graves. The question asked was whether those clothes could be worn by the living (insofar as they had no blood stains on them).

Rav Oshry began his response by citing the halacha in the Shulchan Aruch that when a person is found killed he should be buried as is, with his clothes left on. He then discusses a distinction made by the Shach between one who is killed and one who dies several days after sustaining a fall, where the former should be buried as is while the latter should receive a normal tahara. In the case under discussion, since there was no blood absorbed into the clothes, Rav Oshry ruled that the clothes could be taken off the bodies and used. However, since the individuals were killed in cold blood, there exists an idea of burying them in their clothes in order to increase the anger of others against the murderers.

(The latter portion of the teshuva discusses other cases concerning clothing of the dead, including some cases that Rav Oshry dealt with in America after the war.)

Pikuach Nefesh - MiMa'amakim 1:2

There was an airfield near the Kovno Ghetto and each day the Nazis asked for 1,000 Jews to come and work at the airfield. As a ration, the Jews were given some form of soup that was most decidely not kosher (and probably not so edible either). A group of the Jews who were on the work detail asked Rav Oshry if they were allowed to eat the soup, since at the present moment their failure to eat the soup would not cause them to starve, and thus perhaps the general rules of piku'ach nefesh would not apply.

Rav Oshry began his reply by basing himself on the case of someone who is ill on Yom Kippur who either feels that he needs to eat or is told by a doctor to eat. In both instances, we allow the individual to eat, even if his failure to eat will cause his condition to worsen down the road and not at the present moment. Based on that, Rav Oshry held that it would be permitted for the people on work detail to eat the soup.

However, Rav Oshry presses the case further, noting that in the Yom Kippur case the individual is already sick, whereas in the question posed to him the people were not sick at the time, and thus perhaps they cannot claim to fall under the rubric of piku'ach nefesh. To answer this concern, Rav Oshry cites the case of a person lost in the wilderness who does not know which day is Shabbat. The law in such a case is that the individual should count off six days and then hold the 7th day as Shabbat. However, there is a discussion as to whether he should actually rest on that day, or whether he should behave as normal and simply designate that day as unique through kiddush and havdala. According to the Bigdei Yesha, he can treat the day normally in terms of food preparation and does not have to fast, since he is trying to hasten his exit from the wilderness. From this, Rav Oshry derives that a person can take certain liberties to stave off a harmful situation, even if he is not currently in that situation. And thus, Rav Oshry permitted the workers to have the soup even though they were currently in a healthy condition.

Tearing keriah for a Sefer Torah - Mima'amakim 1:1

In the first teshuva in his collection, Rabbi Oshry describes a case where the Nazis brought many cats and dogs into the Beit Midrash in the Kovno ghetto and slaughtered them. Not content with that desecration of a holy site, they then had Jews come forward and tear the sifrei Torah to be used to cover the rotting corpses of the slain animals.

The question that emerged was whether a general fast day or some other public expression of mourning could be proclaimed as a result of this incident.

Rabbi Oshry first deals with the halacha as it pertains to those who actually witnessed the incident. After dealing with a potential variant text in the Gemara in Moed Katan 26a, he concludes that anyone who actually saw the sifrei Torah being torn had to tear keriah. With regard to others in the ghetto who did not witness the incident, and who perhaps did not even see what had happened, Rabbi Oshry deliberates, weighing the issue that such a horrific incident is clearly a call from Hashem to repent against the fact that there does not seem to be a strong source obligating the masses to take any definitive action.

In the end, Rabbi Oshry concluded that there was certainly no need for people to fast as a result of this incident, particularly in light of their generally weakened state due to the lack of proper nutrition in the ghetto. However, anyone who wanted to give tzedaka as a result of this event was encouraged to do so, and Rabbi Oshry used the following Shabbat as an opportunity to arouse the people to do teshuva and to be particularly careful in the respect that they accorded sifrei Torah.