114 Mark Washofsky
reenacts a long-standing halakhic debate, even though the social context of that debate has shifted from the Rabbinite-Karaite controversy to questions arising from interactions between the newlydefined“Orthodox” sect and the non-observant Jews who surround them in an increasingly secular age.
Ettlinger’s opinion, composed in the fall of 1860, responds to a query from his in-law Rabbi Shemaryahu Zuckerman.” It is Zuckerman’s position that wine“touched”(i.e., poured) by a nonobservant Jew is forbidden for consumption. He bases his ruling upon the Talmudic statement that equates the Jew who publicly violates the laws forbidding labor on the Sabbath (mehalel Shabbat befarhesya) with the one who worships idols: he is“an apostate who rejects the entire Torah .” Just as the wine belonging to a Jew is forbidden for consumption should a non-Jew come into contact with it, logic dictates that the same rule should apply to the case of the Shabbat violator, who after all is“like a Gentile.””> Moreover, Zuckerman can offer a precedent for this position: at least one authority has forbidden the wine of Karaites on similar grounds.” On the other hand, that precedent does not necessarily determine the law for us, since some authorities rule that wine“touched” by Karaites is not forbidden.” Zuckerman has therefore asked Ettlinger for his opinion on the matter.
Ettlinger begins by conceding Zuckerman’s major point: the halakhah does consider those who violate the Sabbath in public to be “like Gentiles,” and the wine they pour should therefore be forbidden to us. After all, even those authorities who permit the consumption of“Karaite wine” would certainly forbid the wine poured by Shabba! violators. Zuckerman’s stance is therefore halakhicly correct. But adds Ettlinger, it is“correct” only as a matter of theory(me‘ka’ hadin), as a conclusion arrived at by the operation of pure legal logic: As a matter of practice, however, Ettlinger hesitates: he is not so sur that the“the non-observant Jews of our own time”(posh‘ei yisrael