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Autonomy in Halacha

שו”תCategory: Meta HalachaAutonomy in Halacha
asked 8 months ago

Hello,
From what I understand from the rabbi’s lessons, there is value in autonomy in halakhah, but there is a caveat that one must be a bar hachi who can rule on halakhah. If that is not the case, we must choose a rabbi. What should I do in the case where I know that I am not a bar hachi, because I have not studied Talmud and halakhah enough, but on a certain issue, after investigating its arguments, I find that the Rambam’s arguments are more convincing to me than the arguments of the Shulchan Aruch? Others claim that I should follow the Shulchan Aruch or a Sephardic rabbi (I am Sephardic) and ignore the Rambam’s arguments, because what I think I understand is likely to be a mistake. I do not understand how I am supposed to ignore what my intellect tells me. I know that the rabbi was dealing with the issue of substantive versus formal authority and autonomy in halakhah, but because of the caveat that the rabbi mentioned, I am left with doubts about how to proceed in such a situation.


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מיכי Staff answered 8 months ago
I think that if your conclusion is in line with an existing posk, you can act according to your understanding because you certainly did not make a fundamental mistake. You have someone to rely on. If you disagree on pillars of teaching and there are no clear posk on your side, this cannot be done by someone who is not a bar-i-haq.

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Moshe Sellam replied 8 months ago

I understand, thank you very much for the quick response.

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