Q&A: Halakhic Ruling
Halakhic Ruling
Question
Hello Rabbi,
From what I’ve understood until now, the Jewish people accepted upon themselves (generally speaking) the Shulchan Arukh as the book of Jewish law (correct me if I’m mistaken).
But recently I happened to look at answers you gave on the site, and I saw the following sentence:
"The Shulchan Arukh was written in the 16th century. It was not given at Sinai. If Rabbi Yosef Karo writes something according to his understanding, that does not obligate me. Even his regular halakhic rulings are open to criticism, and certainly when he writes recommendations."
I don’t understand how you (or any other rabbi) issue halakhic rulings. After all, you can’t just ignore centuries of rabbinic literature on the grounds that "this is only his understanding" (or can you? I really don’t know, but it doesn’t sound reasonable to me).
I’d be happy if you could try to explain to me how this works, because this subject is very interesting to me. If there are articles/books that deal with this topic, I’d be glad if you could refer me to them.
Thank you.
Answer
Greetings.
I’ll try to answer briefly, because this requires a lot of weaving together.
- Every person can make mistakes, including the greatest halakhic decisors and even the Sages of the Talmud.
- Even if the greatest halakhic decisors say otherwise, every halakhic decisor is still obligated to decide according to his own understanding.
- In Jewish law, authority exists only for the Talmud (see Rosh, Sanhedrin ch. 4, sec. 10, who discusses this at length). The Kesef Mishneh at the beginning of the laws of Rebels explains that this is because we accepted it upon ourselves (and not because it can never be mistaken).
- Other halakhic works do not have mandatory authority. That is, if I have a clear position of my own, I disagree with them. That is what the commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh did, and that is what they also did with the greatest of the medieval authorities (Rishonim).
- Conclusion: one cannot ignore the words of the Talmud. As for later sages, although it is not proper to ignore the words of the greatest halakhic decisors, their words are not binding.
- In my book that is currently being written, I deal with this at length. It has not yet been published.