Q&A: Halakhic Confusion
Halakhic Confusion
Question
Hello Rabbi. I’m completely desperate. Lately I’ve run into many different halakhic rulings, and it feels to me that Jewish law is simply inconsistent. Unlike the period of the Tannaim, when the Torah corpus was fairly small and each Tanna had a reasonably good chance of developing a consistent set of interpretive rules across the whole Torah, today about half the responsa (especially the later-order ones) feel to me like conclusions based on the decisor’s gut. I haven’t found any criterion that really holds up — in terms of fit with sources and consistency — for when one should be strict and when one may be lenient.
After all, if the rules for halakhic doubt among halakhic decisors create halakhic reality — which many rabbis think, though that is puzzling, since in Horayot we see that even the Sanhedrin does not do that — then there is no reason ever to be strict in a rabbinic-level doubt or in a double doubt, and anyone who has opened the Mishnah Berurah can see that that is not what actual decision-making looks like. True, in the Talmud it sounds as though they say fairly decisively that one follows the one greater in wisdom and number, and that a rabbinic-level doubt is treated leniently, etc., but apparently most decisors in most generations see this as a general recommendation and not as something too dramatic. As the Rabbi surely knows, there is no reasonable source for the idea that there is any blanket exemption from blame caused by obeying halakhic authority across the board, all the more so when it comes to dubious rules of doubt.
On the other hand, if the rules of doubt do not decide the matter, then nobody has any way really to know how severe it is to commit a transgression unintentionally. How do I know when I can rely on the lenient opinion? And here the whole business feels blatantly inconsistent to me. I can’t find any clear regularity in it.
This inconsistency creates a general halakhic picture that in my eyes is completely ridiculous, and you can probably relate to the criticism that second-order decision-making is one of the main causes of it. Since there is no fixed formula for brewing this potion called a “ruling” out of the whole tangle of approaches and the weights that must be given to each factor, it becomes totally arbitrary and leads to futile arguments among second-rate rabbis.
The alternative to all this is to know the entire Talmud and rule for myself — maybe even sometimes be strict against the Talmud, so that I won’t turn out mistaken regarding the commandment to heed the words of the sages. But even within the Talmud itself there are endless doubts, and usually it is not really possible to decide a major dispute among medieval authorities lightly — simply because many times the Talmud can genuinely be understood in two fairly reasonable ways.
What am I supposed to do?
Thank you very much
Answer
Hello.
I understand your feelings, but it seems to me that you are making a basic mistake. You claim that in the absence of a formula, everyone does whatever he wants. That is not true. There is no formula, and still there is a general halakhic mode of thinking (not an algorithmic one). The disputes take place within that framework, and the anarchy is not nearly as great as you describe. This is similar to the common criticisms of what goes on in the legal world. And yet jurists will tell you that the anarchy is not so great and that not everyone does whatever he wants.
In the end, once you reach the point of giving rulings, you must decide as you understand, and there is no need to panic because there are decisors who think differently from you. A judge has only what his eyes can see. But the condition for this is that you attain the capacity to issue rulings. See my article on autonomy in halakhic decision-making.
Discussion on Answer
You’re going back again to the need for a formula. There is no formula. So what?! If you have several ways to interpret or read, there are rules for doubt, and there is room to take custom into account. What exactly is the problem here?
But that itself is the complaint: there really are no rules of doubt. That’s what is unclear to me — after all, we see that “a rabbinic-level doubt is treated leniently” and “a Torah-level doubt is treated strictly” are not sweeping rules. So what are the rules of doubt? That’s what I’m looking for.
If so, then apparently I haven’t understood the problem at all. Why are there no rules of doubt? There certainly are. דווקא those rules are sweeping, unlike many other rules. The rule is very simple: a Torah-level doubt is treated strictly and a rabbinic-level doubt leniently. That’s all. If you are in doubt, that is what you should do. If there is a dispute among the decisors, it still depends on what your own view is. If you have a position, go with it. If you don’t, act according to the rules of doubt. True, there are decisors who wrote that one should follow the majority among the decisors, but that is an empty rule, because you can never know what the majority of decisors say (since not all of them wrote, and not all are known to you), and therefore you should follow the rules of doubt.
If you want to bring a specific example to discuss, you’re welcome to. The general problem you raise — I don’t understand it.
What I mean is that within the rules of doubt themselves there are disputes about how to act. How am I supposed to relate to the question, “Is the rule that a rabbinic-level doubt is treated leniently a sweeping rule, or should one prefer to be strict even against it?” After all, this is a reflective question about the rules of doubt themselves. And don’t say this isn’t a question because it explicitly says leniently. Our own eyes see that many decisors relate to it this way.
I think we’ve exhausted this. I don’t understand these questions. In my view I answered everything. If you have a specific example from among the thousands of examples that confuse you, you’re welcome to raise it here for discussion.
Forgive me, Rabbi, but I find it hard to agree with the first part of what you said. It comes out very significant, and while the anarchy in agreed-upon areas is not so great (everyone agrees you have to keep the Sabbath), unfortunately many issues that are very critical for day-to-day life, or in general, are borderline issues — doubtful laws in family purity, delaying pregnancy, kashrut — whether meat must be glatt or not, carrying within an eruv in a city, and the like. And in these borderline issues, the situation really is pretty much a jungle, in my impression. Nobody has a formula for when it is appropriate to be strict or when one may be lenient, and what counts as a pressing circumstance sufficient to permit X. And in issues like these, there’s just nothing to be done.
I know the article in question, and I do indeed think it is good, but it doesn’t solve everything. As I said, in many doubtful issues the bitter truth is that there really is more than one way to read parts of the Talmud, and even if it seems slightly more likely to me to read it one way, I know that in the end there is a not-insignificant chance that what Ravina and Rav Ashi meant was דווקא the somewhat less preferable way. After all, everyone agrees that there are a number of places where one is compelled to give interpretations of the Talmud that are not so simple, so one should assume that in some unknown places too, the interpretation is not the simplest interpretation, as long as it is reasonable.