The Difference Between One’s Own Chumrah and Telling Others What to Do
Rabbi Eli Yelen Shlit”a asked Harav Elyashiv zt”l whether he had to stand for elderly collectors in the beis midrash. The answer was clear — and the follow-up was even clearer.
When Rabbi Eli Yelen Shlit”a was learning in Eretz Yisrael in the Mir, he once asked a shailah to Harav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv zt”l.
In the yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael, people would often come into the batei midrash to collect tzedakah. Many of them appeared to be elderly. Rabbi Yelen asked: Was he obligated to stand up for each one?
Harav Elyashiv asked him, “How do you know they are older than seventy?”
Rabbi Yelen answered that it was quite evident.
“If so,” said Harav Elyashiv, “why not?”
Rabbi Yelen suggested that perhaps they were mochel.
“Did they tell you they were mochel?” Harav Elyashiv asked.
“No,” Rabbi Yelen answered.
“If so,” said Harav Elyashiv, “stand up for them.”
Rabbi Yelen accepted the psak and then said, “I’ll tell others that they also need to stand up.”
“No,” said Harav Elyashiv. “Don’t.”
Rabbi Yelen asked why not.
“They are probably mochel,” Harav Elyashiv replied.
For oneself, not knowing that the older person was mochel was enough reason to stand. But to tell others that they were obligated to stand, one would need to know that the older person was not mochel.
The answer was simple, but only after it was said. It showed the clarity with which a gadol thinks: what one does for himself because of what he does not know is not automatically something he may impose on someone else.