The Bialystoker Controversy III

Updating readers on The Bialystoker Controversy...

I sat next to the rabbi of the Bialystoker Synagogue at a wedding a few weeks ago. I brought up the controversy in which he was involved and told him my take on the issue. To remind you, this is what I posted a few weeks ago:

He could have stopped here and said that a child until the age of nine or ten has a status of a holeh she-ein bo sakanah (a non-critical sick person - see Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 276:1, 328:17; Shemirat Shabbat Ke-Hilkhatah, ch. 37 par. 2 vol. 1 p. 495) and, if such a child is hysterical one may violate a rabbinic prohibition on his behalf. Since, if a child can walk on his own the prohibition to carry him is only of rabbinic origin, and if a child is hysterical he has a status of a holeh she-ein bo sakanah for whom one may violate a rabbinic prohibition, it follows that one may carry such a hysterical child.

The rabbi did not like my logic because he is not so sure that a crying child has the status of a holeh she-ein bo sakanah, although he agreed that if a child is hysterical in the middle of the street you should pick him up and carry him so that he is not run over by a car. I should note that he was quite sick at the time. Smiley, but sick.