Yosef Eliyahu Henkin - Halachic Positions

Halachic Positions

Rabbi Henkin considered Reform marriage as a form of common law marriage requiring a Jewish divorce (get).

He was opposed to the practice seen in many yeshivas and synagogues of pausing in the middle of the Rosh Hashanah services for kiddush and refreshments before shofar-blowing. (His stance is defended in his grandson's responsa.)

If a Jewish storekeeper completed a form to sell his chametz to a non-Jew before Passover, yet he kept his store open, selling chametz on Passover and keeping the profits for himself, Rabbi Henkin felt that this proved the "Chametz sale" to be a fraud and therefore invalid. (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, on the other hand, believed the sale to still be valid.)

Rabbi Henkin felt that in a case where tunafish are being caught, it is halachically permissible to check only a few of each batch and not each individual fish; Rabbi Feinstein, on the other hand, felt that each fish needed to be checked for kosher markings that it was in fact, a tunafish and not some other fish. This is a particularly interesting heiter (permission) since Rav Henkin did not allow for the concept of Cholov Stam; i.e., milk which the government supervises as a form of kosher; making canned tuna (which is boiled in milk to give it more weight) using in the same product both the heiter of Cholov Stam and tunafish, which means that neither Rabbi Henkin nor Rabbi Feinstein would eat the product, as made.