Bais HaVaad on the Parsha, Parshas Chukas

Generation Gap

July 3, 2025

Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yitzhak Grossman 

And Moshe made a snake of copper and placed it on the pole; so it was that if the snake bit a man, he would stare at the copper snake and live.

Bemidbar 21:9

The navi (Melachim II 18:4) relates that Chizkiyahu Hamelech, who destroyed the avodah zarah in his time, demolished the copper snake fashioned by Moshe, because the people were using it for idol worship. The Gemara (Chulin 6b) says that  R’ Yehuda Hanasi used Chizkiyahu’s example to permit vegetables grown in Bais She’an to be eaten without separating ma’aser, even though in earlier generations, ma’aser was taken from such produce.[1] He explained that although Kings Asa and Yehoshafat (Chizkiyahu’s ancestors) had already destroyed the avodah zarah in their time, they left the copper snake intact so that Chizkiyahu could add his own contribution to the struggle against idols (makom hinichu lo avosav kedei lehisgader bo). Likewise, Rebbi argued that his predecessors left it to him to propose the halachic novelty that vegetables grown in Bais She’an were actually not subject to ma’aser.

The notion of makom hinichu lo avosav was used in various contexts by later Acharonim. For example, the Tshuras Shai argued that one must construct a shul’s ezras nashim in such a manner that the women cannot see the men. He acknowledged that this was not practiced in earlier times, but he maintained that it is halachically required and cited the principle of makom hinichu lo avosav.

The Satmar Rebbe argued in Divrei Yoel that this stringency was without basis. He says that the principle of makom hinichu lo avosav applies only when one offers an approach that differs from that of others in the same halachic league—like Chizkiyahu, Asa, and Yehoshafat (all melachim), or Rebbi and earlier chachamim (all Tana’im)—but later Acharonim cannot disagree with authorities of earlier generations, because they were on a much higher level. They certainly had reasons for permitting women to observe the men in shul.

[1] See the Gemara and mefarshim there for more detail about the halachic issues involved.