Q&A: The Sages as Formal Authority
The Sages as Formal Authority
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
The Mishnah in Horayot 1:1 teaches that a sage qualified to issue rulings who thinks that the court is mistaken in its ruling, yet nevertheless acts in accordance with the court’s practice, is liable for a sin-offering (and is not exempt through the bull brought for the community’s erroneous ruling). For he knew that they had erred, and nevertheless acted on their instruction. And in the Talmud it is explained that he is considered an unwitting transgressor, liable for a sin-offering, and not an intentional sinner, because he thought that it is a commandment to act in accordance with the ruling of the court even when they are mistaken.
But if the sages are a formal authority, then one should have to listen to them even when one knows that they are mistaken, contrary to what the Mishnah says, no?
Answer
Not correct. The question is: to what does their authority apply? If there is an error there, and he is a sage qualified to issue rulings, then they have no authority. After all, the parameters of authority are fixed by the verse "do not deviate." Substantive authority applies where one is not qualified to issue rulings, or when he is not certain that they erred (but only suspects it).
Beyond that, as far as I recall, there are major disputes among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) about the parameters of the law regarding someone who errs while performing the commandment to heed the words of the sages, and this is not the place to go into it.
Discussion on Answer
First, it depends on those disputes I mentioned.
But beyond that, regarding the law of the rebellious elder, a sage today is not qualified to issue rulings in that sense, because he does not have ordination in the classic chain. Therefore it is doubtful whether the law of one who is qualified to issue rulings applies to him. What I wrote is that in someone qualified to issue rulings, there is room to distinguish between doubt and certainty with respect to substantive authority.
I would note that this is only a theoretical question. I do not see how one could reach a certain conclusion that the Talmud erred in the calculation of the passage (as distinct from a factual error).
The same applies to the Knesset. If it is clear that it erred (how is it clear?), then there is certainly room to depart from its instructions. It is reasonable to do so only where a very heavy moral price is involved (conscientious objection, or where an order is manifestly illegal—where a black flag flies over it).
Would you consider an error in a manuscript a factual error?
For example, a case where in a Talmudic passage there is a tannaitic source with difficult wording, which forces the Talmud into strained reinterpretations / difficult reasoning / contradictions with other sources (and even the medieval authorities comment on this and leave it unresolved), and we find a reliable manuscript of that tannaitic source in which, thanks to a few words found there, all the difficulties and reinterpretations of the Talmud become completely irrelevant, and everything fits perfectly.
Or a simpler example, without a manuscript error: a Mishnah that the Babylonian Talmud explains through a strained reinterpretation, while in the Jerusalem Talmud it is much simpler and more coherent.
I can’t give you a general criterion. Maybe if the difficulty is very sharp and obvious and has no good answer, and your textual solution is well grounded in the manuscript—then yes. I think it is hard for me to imagine such a case. If that is the version the Talmud itself adopted, then for us that is the version. Perhaps in an especially blatant case I would allow myself to depart from it. One should remember that the authority of the Mishnah comes by force of the Talmud, and so it stands to reason that the same mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted. That is, the version the Talmud had before it is the version that received the authoritative status of Mishnah.
So there is no formal authority in a case of error, only in a case of possible error?
For example, if a sage qualified to issue rulings today reaches the certain conclusion that the Talmud made a mistake in the calculation within the passage, should he act according to his own learning and not according to the Talmud’s conclusion?
Or in the analogy the Rabbi brought on the blog—if a person is certain that the Knesset is mistaken, should he act against the law?