Q&A: What Is a Doubt?
What Is a Doubt?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding the principle that a Torah-level doubt is treated stringently and a rabbinic-level doubt leniently, the question is: what counts as a doubt?
Is a doubt only one that exists for everyone and that I couldn’t resolve through study or clarification (for example: it is not clear when exactly night begins at twilight, and therefore people are stringent about the onset of the Sabbath), or does a factual doubt also fall under this category (for example: it is not clear to me whether the dairy dish in front of me contains chicken or tofu), or a doubt about the Jewish law in a rabbinic matter?
Answer
There is doubt in the law, and there is doubt in the facts (see, for example, Mishnah Shabbat, at the beginning of the chapter "Klal Gadol," 67b). Both are considered doubt, and in principle there is no difference between them with respect to the rules governing doubtful cases. In a situation where one can clarify the matter (and this is relevant mainly to factual doubt), many halakhic decisors write that this is not considered a doubt, and one must either clarify it or be stringent.