“Follow the majority” is said only in a situation of doubt,
for otherwise one would have to follow the majority of the world, which is Muslim or Christian
(see Rabbi Jonathan’s reply to the bishop,
brought by Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman)

The answer is clear. (By the way, if we really had to follow the majority, maybe we wouldn’t stop at the Christian majority, and would have to follow the majority of living creatures, walk on all fours, and prey on animals in the jungle.)

But that still doesn’t cover the basic assumption you made:

“The Haredim are the overwhelming majority of the world of Torah scholarship.”

As for “overwhelming majority,” your words aren’t defined. What exactly do you mean?

And as for “majority”: the statistics say that those who define themselves as “Haredi” make up 8 percent of Israel’s population, those who define themselves as “religious” make up 10 percent, and those who define themselves as “traditional” make up 23 percent (and if we check the breakdown within the Jewish population, the gap grows: 9 percent Haredi, 13 percent religious). Google “the religious distribution in Israeli society.”

So your assumptions need serious examination.

Hello Rabbi,
Thank you very much for your fine answer, but I still think your approach can be challenged. After all, a majority is not just something arbitrary; there is a lot of logic here. How do we explain the fact that almost all of the great Torah sages believe in the Haredi path? They are wiser than we are, and if they follow that approach then apparently they’re right, no? Just as you have no doubt, they also have no doubt, so why shouldn’t we say that since they are greater than the rabbis of the Mizrachi camp (we should be honest here), we should nullify our own opinion? They also know our sources, and nevertheless they do not rule as we do. I’d be glad for your response.
P.S. Yossi, it’s a majority in number because in my opinion you count the Torah scholars. And an overwhelming majority because, in my humble opinion, we do not have great figures like their great figures. (Not to diminish our rabbis, of course; there are certainly some very great ones among them too.)

Did you conduct a scholarly survey?
Did you examine the level of Torah scholarship of our sages and Torah students against the great Torah scholars of the Modern Orthodox?
When and how was the count done, and by what metric?
Besides that, intelligence is not the determining factor,
because if it were, then apparently most intelligent people are on the non-believing side of the divide, or believe in beliefs different from yours.
A person is supposed to decide according to the tools he has.

It’s well known that the Religious Zionists don’t know how to learn, and in the words of the author of the responsa and articles, they’re on the level of “an average kollel fellow.” (He said this about women, but in my opinion the same applies here.)
When your head is also occupied with army service, the Maharal, Hasidism, community contribution, and the psychometric exam, there’s less room for Rashi, Tosafot, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, and Ketzot.

Since the question is somewhat childish, I won’t address it. Nobody needs to explain why many others are wrong. What one needs to do is present arguments in favor of one’s own position. I also won’t get into the assumptions about who counts as a great sage in Israel and how many such sages there are in each place. All of that falls under ad hominem or ad populum.
It is also possible to see my remarks in Column 69:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%95-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%91-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%91-%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%93%D7%A7-%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8-69/

One of my harder experiences, when the people from “Arachim” tried to “bring me back to the right path” and “show me the light,” was when they sent me to a famous “emotional therapist” in Kiryat Sefer.

He asked what I believed and what I didn’t, and then dismissed my words with a wave of the hand and cried out dramatically: Do you really think you are wiser and more expert than Maimonides? Than Rabbi Akiva Eiger? Than the Vilna Gaon? Than the Chazon Ish? What, your questions never occurred to them? So the problem is emotional, not intellectual, right?

Ad hominem.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Is that the level?
Should I explain to him that today’s scientific and philosophical problems were not on their table?
Should I start counting the sages on “my side”?

In short, it’s good that the Rabbi addresses the substance of the arguments here, and not “all the rabbis,” “all the scientists,” and the like.

Hello Rabbi,

I’ve already read many of your posts, including the one about the majority, and I enjoy reading your words very much. Even so, I think that article about the majority doesn’t really apply here. Here it is clearly a majority of wisdom, not just some random majority. The Rabbi is making what seems to be a strong claim, that one must analyze the substance of the argument and not the people making it, but I would argue in response that we seemingly ought to nullify our own opinion before sages who presumably know better than we do, even if we have not fully understood their thinking. And to everyone commenting here, let’s not pretend; as one of the commenters wrote nicely (though he exaggerated a bit), in my humble opinion—and not only mine—you simply cannot compare the number of their great figures to ours. Yes, we have a few halakhic decisors (like Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Yaakov Ariel); good for us. But can that really be compared with dozens if not hundreds of great Torah sages on the other side? On the substance of the issue, Rabbi, and this is what matters to me that you address: in my opinion my argument is not childish, because if so many great figures, who are the almost absolute overwhelming majority of the sages of Israel, are on the other side, that means our conclusions are probably mistaken. Even if right now our reasoning leads us to conclude that we are right. After all, it doesn’t make sense that so many great figures are “on the other side”—is that really a trivial matter in your eyes, Rabbi? I’m not going to start counting the number of halakhic decisors on their side, but it is clear that it is an overwhelming majority in both number and weight among the great Torah sages—and I stress, among the great Torah sages.

So Rabbi, to sum up my main difficulty: from the fact that virtually all of them are on the other side, it seems they have thought more deeply than I have, even if I have not yet grasped the depth of their reasoning.

I hope my words are clearer now and that the Rabbi will analyze the difficulty.

I thank the Rabbi for relating to every person and for his pleasant answers.

Aharon, that is the Steipler’s argument in Chayei Olam. And indeed I too was shocked by that nonsense. This teaches you that a person can be intelligent and possess clear and brilliant thinking in the halakhic-analytical sphere, and still say foolish things in the realm of thought.

Yair,
I see no point in repeating myself. Even without getting into your problematic assumptions about who counts as wise, there are sages everywhere, so if you start counting sages you won’t get very far. As I said, this is childish thinking. You are supposed to make decisions yourself and not hand them over to one sage or another. Only in a field of professional expertise is there room to hand decisions over to someone equipped with the relevant knowledge. Wisdom is not a guarantee of correct decisions, as I explained there.

Heaven forbid, I am not answering in place of the Rabbi, and I would ask him to answer Yair directly.

If I may, I’ll say what seems to me:

The Rabbi has pointed out several times the fallacy in determining what is cause and what is effect.
For example, one could say that Diet Coke causes obesity—the proof being that all overweight people drink Diet Coke. That is of course a mistake. Because the person is overweight, he drinks diet cola; it is not because he drinks diet cola that he became overweight.

In our case: the great Torah sages of the generation usually remain in the camp in which they were raised. They usually do not choose where to belong, and generally continue more or less along the line in which they were educated. They develop, enlarge, and teach the Torah they received.
So it was not greatness in Torah that pushed a person to move over and join the Haredi camp; rather, it is the Haredi camp that produced the growth of the “great man.”
The Haredi garden-bed produces more “greats,” and it is not that the “greats” move over to the Haredi public.

And that is of course a question: why does the Haredi public produce more “greats”?

There are many answers to that question; each person has a different one:

Because of Haredi education toward the single supreme value of “Torah,” unlike the additional values that cut into it in the Religious Zionist public—settling the Land, army, the Jewish people, etc.
Because of social support, like kollels and stipends.
Because the Haredi street culture inflates the status of the great figures (sometimes beyond what they really are), which pushes others to follow them.
Because Haredim are not expected to know anything except Torah, while religious people are educated to combine Torah study with studies of faith, minimal general education, and familiarity with reality. So on the one hand it is easier for a Haredi person who is detached from this world to become “great” (though on the other hand he is often quite disconnected).
And so on; there are many possible answers.

The point is that the question is not why the great figures are not Religious Zionists, but why the Religious Zionist public does not produce many “greats.”

I see that the Rabbi answered before me; I hope I responded to the point.

I know of a somewhat similar statement in the name of Rabbi Shimon Shkop, though in a much gentler formulation: if the Vilna Gaon, the genius of geniuses, who knew all the sciences, believed in our Torah, then I have no doubts in matters of faith. (That is not the same thing.)

In any case, arguments of this kind are not fit to be heard from the mouths of people from “Arachim” and the like.

It seems to me comparable to the difference between the Old World and the New World. At first, the Old World had far more scientists, philosophers, thinkers, and innovators than the New World. And still, the New World’s place remained what it was. And today the New World has replaced the Old World. Enough said.

The reality on the ground is that the children of the religious are less likely to continue in the path of their fathers than the Haredim are.

It’s strange to me that this didn’t come up here, but there is a simple boundary: the rule of “follow the majority” was said only in a case where they sat and deliberated together in a religious court, which is not what happens in the Torah world…
So even if we accept all the non-necessary assumptions presented in the question, it has nothing to do with the question of how to decide. (And see the entire literature of Jewish law, apart from Rabbi Ovadia, who innovated a principle here on his own authority and contrary to all prior methods of halakhic ruling.)

You’ve looked through the entire literature of Jewish law? I’m not sure. In any case, I recommend that you also look at the Rema and the Shakh, Choshen Mishpat sec. 25, and the commentaries there. Actually, read the entire section from beginning to end. Then sue Rabbi Ovadia for plagiarism.