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mother the right to take him to a faraway place?! It is unthinkable!’
Also see Even Ha’ezer (82, in Chelkas Mechokek, 9) who writes that
the father is obligated to educate his son and teach him Torah and he
cannot be deprived of that right.

“Therefore, the case must come before beis din, who will solicit
testimony and investigate whether there is any substance to the
aunt’s claim that the daughter will become sick again. If chas veshalom
[Heaven forfend] it is so, it is a matter of piku’ach nefesh [danger to
life] and the girl shall remain with her aunt.

“However, so as long it has not been established with utter clarity
that if the daughter returns to her parents’ home she is likely to re-
lapse, the aunt is not allowed to keep the girl with her despite all her
good intentions.

“And even if beis din decides to leave the girl with her aunt, they
must thoroughly check whether there is any possibility that she can
be near her parents’ house so that they can come and visit her. Only
if such visits are certain to harm the girl should she be kept away
completely from her parents and remain with her aunt overseas.”



Now, in regard to the question with which we opened our discus-
sion about the father who pushed his son while holding a knife: If it
is proven in beis din that the father is of sound mind and if it can be
assumed that if they warn him he will never repeat his folly, beis din
should arrange that he gets a warning and the police should threaten
him with the consequences and we can assume that there will be no
recurrence, for the reason it occurred until now is because he had not
be warned. Support for this can be adduced from the gemara in Bava
Kama (48b) which says that there is such a thing as a “an ox that ha-
bitually falls onto people in pits.” This means that while the ox doesn’t
kill people, it shows a type of impulse to fall onto people who are in
pits – apparently there is some such urge. This man shows a similar
pattern; he apparently need not be suspected him of bloodshed but
he has some sort of predilection for carelessness, to the point where
he will push his son while holding a knife. We are therefore entitled to

Removing a Child from the Parents’ Custody 2 235