May an adult hand a child food that is not kosher?
In
three different cases the gemora in Yevamos 114a
teaches us that an adult may not hand a child an issur,
regardless of the child’s age.
The first case deals with handing a child something forbidden to eat.
The possuk in Vayikra (11:42) says lo sochlum ki
sheketz hem,
and the gemora teaches that the Torah is telling us lo
sachilum – we must not feed a child an issur. This has
nothing to do with the mitzvah of chinuch – educating a
child to perform and heed the mitzvos, rather it is a negative
commandment prohibiting adults from feeding a child an issur.
The second case
refers to the issur of drinking blood. The possuk in
Vayikra (17:12) says kol nefesh mekem lo sochal dam, and
since this issur was written previously, the gemora
understands that it is teaching us that an adult may not feed blood to a
child.
The last case deals
with tum'ah – impurity. The possuk in Vayikra (21:1) says
emor al hanehenim bnei Aharon v'amarta, from the seemingly
superfluous word v'amarta – you shall say to, the gemora
understands that we are prohibited from handing a child-Cohen something
that will cause him to be defiled.
The poskim
learn
that these three
halachos teach us that one may not hand a child any issur, even if
it is only an issur d’rabanan.
What if I am
merely placing it in his hand, or placing him next to the issur or the
issur next to the child?
The gemora
Shabbos at the end of the 9th perek says that one
may not hand a child a non-kosher grasshopper, lest it dies and the
child will eat it. (I suppose that this exact scene would not take place
nowadays but the ramifications of this case are definitely pertinent).
Rashi there explains that placing the issur in the child’s
hand is akin to feeding him the issur. It follows that placing
the issur in front of the child, in a way that the child will
certainly take it, is similar to handing it to him and if through one’s
action the child can partake of the issur, one may not do it.
What if the child is ill and requires the issur
for his health?
We must
differentiate between an issur d’oraisso
(biblically forbidden) and an issur d’rabanan. One may not hand
or feed the child an issur d’oraisso
(such as chametz on Pesach) unless it is pikuach nefesh –
the child’s life is in danger.
An issur
d’rabanan is different as there are poskim
who hold that one may
hand a child an issur d’rabanan when he requires it, even if he
is not ill, and therefore when ill one may rely on those poskim.
Normally one may not
instruct a gentile to feed a child an issur, even if the issur
is only ossur mid’rabanan such as food cooked on Shabbos,
but when a child is
ill and he requires that particular food, one may instruct a gentile to
feed it to him.
It is important to
note that nowadays it is quite rare that one has to rely on the heter
to feed a child an issur d’oraisso,
as many items are kashrus supervised and are relatively easy to obtain.
May an adult instruct a child to turn on the
lights?
Accordingly an adult
may not instruct a child to turn on a light on Shabbos because telling
him or instructing is similar to handing an issur to him,
and is forbidden.
If a child turned on the lights may adults
benefit from them?
If the child turned
on the lights for the benefit of others it is forbidden to benefit from
those lights until after Shabbos.
If the child turned
the lights on for his own benefit an adult may benefit from them as
well.
We will discuss
b’ezras Hashem - the issue of preventing a child from performing
an issur in the next shiur.
