Q&A: We Do Not Follow the Majority in Monetary Matters
We Do Not Follow the Majority in Monetary Matters
Question
The topic is worn out, but after all the definitions I’m looking for an understandable and logical explanation. We do not follow the majority in monetary matters to clarify reality and take money away from someone who is in possession of it, but we do follow the majority decision of the judges. What is the logic? Essential authority exists to the same degree both in an empirical majority and in a majority of judges. Formal authority, God granted only to a majority of judges, but that itself is the question: why did God make it that way? Ideas like “constitutive authority,” meaning that the formal decision of the judges affects the metaphysical halakhic reality of “what is correct,” and therefore one must act accordingly with certainty, sound empty to me.
Answer
You are assuming that the authority of judges is formal, but the meaning of that is that obeying them does not stem from the fact that they are right, nor from the fact that they change reality, and not even from the fact that they determine what is correct. Formal authority means that we obey them even if it is not correct.
As for your question itself, it depends on many approaches regarding whether one follows the majority in monetary matters. There are opinions that one does follow the majority in monetary matters, and this rule was said only about a majority such as “the majority are for plowing,” and in that case there is a simple explanation (as Rabbi Shimon Shkop writes. I think I also discussed this here in a column. Maybe in the columns on majority. You can search).
And even if indeed we do not follow the majority in monetary matters, that is because in order to extract money, clear proof is required; a majority is not enough. Especially since with a majority there is a minority reality that cannot be ignored, and that is enough to keep the money in the hands of the current possessor (like joining the minority to the presumption of possession).