Q&A: Following the Majority
Following the Majority
Question
Hello and blessings.
I did not understand how we derive following the majority from a religious court. First, there we are talking about a way to decide disputes, so what does that have to do with the laws of doubt? Let me explain what I mean: if I am deliberating whether to do a certain act and I raise considerations for and against, then each consideration on its own tells me in an absolute and decisive way what to do, but in the end I weigh all of those considerations and decide how to rule.
Likewise with judges: each judge tells me with one hundred percent certainty, regarding this specific case, what should be done; but then a conflict arises among the judges as a whole, and we give each group weight, and one side wins.
By contrast, in an ordinary majority case, the majority does not tell me anything decisive about this specific piece, and it does not deny the minority; rather, there is simply a chance that it came from the majority. So what does that have to do with judges?
In other words:
When ministers in a religious court disagree, we follow the majority of opinions. Does that belong to the law of “incline after the many”? Is there even a majority and minority here? One could say that when there is a dispute, the majority view has stronger weight, and therefore we decide in accordance with it [but there is no certainty that it is actually correct; rather, we follow it because it carries greater weight]. But that is relevant specifically to a discussion of opinions. Does it also apply to a situation of factual doubt? There the concept of the weight of opinions does not seem relevant. Whereas in a dispute a decision must be made [they came to the religious court for a ruling], there is no obligation to permit the forbidden piece.
[Within each opinion itself there is 100% certainty [he is sure he is right], and the fact that others disagree with him does not undermine my 100%, unlike factual doubt, where the nine stores are not 100% but 90%.]
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. It is exactly the same thing. I found a piece of meat in the street. If it came from the kosher stores, it is certainly kosher. If it came from the non-kosher stores, it is certainly non-kosher. I have a doubt, and I follow the majority.
The later authorities asked how the law of majority can be learned from a religious court, based on the opposite consideration: after all, there nothing separated from any mixture. Also, in a religious court it is a majority that is not before us, whereas here it is before us. Rabbi Chaim discussed this at length in stencil notes on Bava Kamma 28, and Rabbi Shimon Shkop in Sha’arei Yosher, beginning of Gate 3. I too have written about this in several places. For example, see Columns 69, 79, and 237.
Discussion on Answer
You haven’t added anything here. As I said, in your formulation there is no difficulty at all, and I answered everything. It is exactly the same thing. The possibility that the piece came from the majority of kosher stores also completely rules out the possibility that it came from the minority. But what—perhaps it is mistaken? In a religious court too, it is possible that every side is mistaken. It is completely identical.
What I meant was that the relationship between the majority and minority is different in a religious court than with a piece of meat in the street. In a religious court, the majority does not recognize the legitimacy of the minority position at all to exist as a valid option—it thinks the minority is completely mistaken. That is, it has a decisive statement about what the situation is. By contrast, with a single piece, even the majority supposedly recognizes the possibility that this is a piece from the minority.
If so, in a religious court there is a clash (a “battle”) between the minority and the majority, and then it is understandable that when everything is weighed, the majority somehow wins. But with a single piece there is no “battle,” and the majority recognizes that the piece could be from the minority, and vice versa. That is because this is a probabilistic fact, and the fact that there are nine stores does not say anything directly about this specific piece, so there is no conflict between them. In contrast to a religious court, where each judge states what the truth is regarding this person. Can one still draw an analogy from one to the other?Y