The Minister at the Door
When the question arose of the lineage of the Indian community known as Bnei Yisrael, the Chief Rabbinate, prompted by the Ministry of Religions, leaned toward allowing them to marry Jews. The Steipler spoke out against this. Together with Rav Shach he published a letter stating that the gedolim of Bavel and of Yerushalayim had forbidden them ever since the question arose a century earlier, that every beis din that dealt with it had followed that ruling, and that the prohibition stood in full force.
In further letters to a gathering of rabbonim on the subject, the Steipler urged the gedolei Yisroel to make a permanent takanah (enactment), to last until Moshiach comes, that anyone wishing to marry must first prove beyond doubt that he does not descend from those families or from others who had mixed with them. So fierce was the opposition that the authorities could not go ahead.
Dr. Zerach Warhaftig of the NRP, who was then serving as Minister of Religions, heard how strong the opposition was and asked to meet the Steipler. One day he knocked at the Steipler's door with his entourage. Told who had come, the Steipler refused to see him. Anything he said, he explained, the minister would twist and quote in his name as meaning the very opposite.
Only after several messengers had pleaded with him did he agree to receive the minister, and even then he said he would not answer him on the subject. The minister came in and asked whether they were forbidden to marry Jews. The Steipler would not reply. Must he then instruct rabbonim not to perform their weddings? Again the Steipler declined to answer. He made only one request: that the minister not harass rabbonim who chose not to perform such weddings. On the question itself, he repeated, he would say nothing.
As he left, the minister was heard telling his companions that the Rav had said he need not instruct rabbonim to refuse such weddings. On the following day Hatsofe, the NRP's paper, reported that the Steipler had ruled this way for the minister. When the Steipler heard, he rushed to deny it. He had never said that a rav who permits such a marriage may perform it, he wrote. Knowing they would not listen if he asked them to cancel the permission, he had asked only for a small concession, that rabbonim who did not want to take part not be pressured, and he had said so explicitly so that no one would take it as grounds for permitting.
In this connection, the Steipler would tell what the Brisker Rov had told him about the care a ruling demands. When the Balfour Declaration promised a “national home,” people came to ask the Brisker Rov whether Hallel should be said. Hallel had no connection to the matter at all, he replied; a question about shehecheyonu would at least have made more sense. The questioners left, and later reported that the Brisker Rov had ruled that the beracha of shehecheyonu should be made.