Q&A: Autonomy in Jewish Law
Autonomy in Jewish Law
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I went over your article yesterday, "Autonomy and Authority in Halakhic Rulings," and enjoyed it very much.
Since I have been thinking about these matters for many years already, a number of comments came to mind as I was reading, and I hope to lay out some of them here as time permits.
[Out of curiosity, I’d be interested to know whether this is an old article of yours, because its style is a bit different from other articles of yours that I’ve read.]
In note 3 you pointed out that the Maharshal, on the one hand, in his book Yam Shel Shlomo opposes ruling on the basis of precedents, while on the other hand in his responsa he frequently discusses precedents.
It is interesting to note that with Maran one sees the opposite phenomenon: in Beit Yosef he rules almost entirely on the basis of precedents, whereas in his responsa he sometimes rules directly from Talmudic passages themselves (for example, section 32).
I think the answer in both cases is that there is the ideal and there is the reality. Although the Maharshal held that autonomous halakhic ruling is preferable, he nevertheless did not reject ruling on the basis of precedents, and therefore when he had to give an immediate practical ruling (in responsa), he was forced to rely on precedents.
And Maran, although he thought that ruling on the basis of precedents was preferable as well (actually I’m not sure about that; it may be that from his perspective it was only more practical, and that seems to be implied by the introduction to Beit Yosef), nevertheless in practice he was forced to rule based on his own analysis, because searching through books takes more time.
I think that for the same reason, what you proved in the body of the article (page 82) from the concept of "a dispute among great authorities," namely that we are unable to decide between the halakhic decisors (the medieval authorities (Rishonim)), is not precise, because it may be that this concept refers to a situation in which we do not have time (or some other reason) to decide, and then the dispute is defined as a dispute among great authorities; but that does not negate the possibility of deciding when we do have time to study the matter properly.
Finally, I looked for Rabbi Elisha Aviner’s article about arbitrary rulings in "Elevators" and couldn’t find it. You referred to it in note 2. Perhaps you meant a passage from his article on the rules of giving halakhic instruction, but I did not find a separate article.
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Answer
What you wrote is exactly what I said. Indeed, in a dispute among great authorities one can and should decide for oneself. If you do not have time to decide, then it is reasonable to conduct yourself according to the laws of doubt (although since this is a doubt that could potentially be clarified, perhaps there is no permission to be lenient even in a rabbinic matter).
By the way, the explanation you suggested is a bit forced with regard to Beit Yosef, and also somewhat with regard to the Maharshal. Was he under time pressure in all of his responsa? So when did he work things out independently? Especially since searching for precedents does not take less time than working the issue out yourself.
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Discussion on Answer
Several later authorities (Acharonim) write this. But that is a claim within the framework of the laws of doubt. My argument is that the laws of doubt should not be applied here; rather, one must decide independently.
If memory serves me correctly, there indeed is a Radbaz who holds that in a dispute among great authorities we do not say that in a rabbinic-level doubt one may be lenient.