Q&A: The Authority of the Sages of Our Generation
The Authority of the Sages of Our Generation
Question
Hello Rabbi!
Have you written in the past about the validity of the authority of the leading sages of our time—whether there is an obligation to listen to their enactments and modes of conduct? If so, I’d be glad if you could refer me to the article, or alternatively to another book that summarizes the topic. Thank you very much.
Answer
This appears here in several places. In general, anyone who claims that they have authority bears the burden of proof. Aside from the position of Sefer HaChinukh, which says that the commandment of “do not deviate” applies to the sages of every generation, the accepted view is that this was given only to the Sanhedrin, or to someone who received the agreement of the entire public. Today no one has such agreement.
See for example here:
Discussion on Answer
The whole point of the Torah is to uproot the foolish notion that one person has authority over another person.
Each person is responsible for his own actions.
In matters with social consequences, like quarrels, bloodshed, and afflictions, one should turn to experts in social consequences.
Greetings,
I’ve read in several places here the approach to the authority of the sages,
and I didn’t really understand—how does the system actually work, what gives Jewish law its validity, etc.?
Does “Anyone who disputes his rabbi is as though he disputes the Divine Presence,” and “one who issues a halakhic ruling in his rabbi’s presence” —
does the word “his rabbi” mean the Sanhedrin?
Issuing a halakhic ruling in one’s rabbi’s presence is not a matter of authority but of etiquette. “One who disputes his rabbi” is not a halakhic statement, and certainly not relevant nowadays, when there is no clear primary rabbi and everything is written down. Which sage does not disagree with his rabbi?
It is an explicit verse:
“And for many days Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without Torah” (II Chronicles 15:3)
And similarly in Hosea:
“For the children of Israel shall sit many days without king and without prince, and without sacrifice and without pillar, and without ephod and teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the Lord and to His goodness in the end of days.”
And as Radak says there.