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ted to rent them the hall because lifnei iver is only applicable when
extending an item whose purpose is for sinning – such as wine to
a nazir – to the would be sinner. Any item whose principal use is
permitted, such as a hall, whose main use is as a venue for a wedding
and for eating the festive meal – even if the customer intends to use it
for mixed dancing – will not be subject to lifnei iver.

This logic must be correct for we would otherwise be forbidden
from selling cooking utensils to sinners, because they would presum-
ably cook milk with meat, and other forbidden foods in them and use
them in desecrating Shabbos. However, since the utensil’s main use
is not for sinning, and it is the buyer who initiates its use for sinning,
selling it to him cannot be considered “putting a stumbling block” in
front of him. The same applies to the wedding hall. Since its main
purpose is not to act as a venue for sinning, and it is the customer
who is initiating its use for sinning, no lifnei iver is involved in rent-
ing it to him. It should be added that the hall is not the object used
in sinning; it is merely the venue where the customer can sin of his
own volition. The sin is thus wholly attributable to the customer and
the hall owner has not introduced any object of sin into the picture.
Therefore, this does not resemble the gemara’s statement in Avodah
Zarah (22a) that it is forbidden to leave an animal with a gentile for
safekeeping because they are suspect of committing bestiality with
it, and the animal’s owner thereby violates lifnei iver – as explained
by Rashi and in the Rambam (Hilchos Isurei Bi’ah 22:6) – because by
leaving his animal with the gentile the Jew is extending the object of
the sin to the gentile, who is suspect of transgressing.

Even though it is the hall that makes it possible to hold the mixed
dancing, that is not its main purpose – which is to hold the wedding
and the festive meal – and the sinners transgress on their own [i.e.
their sin is considered incidental to the purpose for which the hall is
being let].

In our case too, it can thus be argued that the physician’s answer
that marital relations are not harmful to the patient’s health do not
cause any sin, because the woman could get married or [in the case
of a married woman] observe the laws of family purity. She, not the

264 1 Medical-Halachic Responsa of Rav Zilberstein