Q&A: Is There an Obligation to Have a Rabbi?
Is There an Obligation to Have a Rabbi?
Question
First of all, I want to thank you for the engaging content you post, and also for your dedication to the public. May you be blessed with all good, amen.
- I wanted to know whether there is a halakhic obligation to ask a rabbi when I am in doubt about Jewish law, or whether there is another option, for example: to rely on basic principles such as, in rabbinic matters follow the lenient opinion, and the like?
- Is it permitted to follow a different halakhic decisor each time (depending on what is more convenient for me)?
Thank you very much.
Answer
- There is no obligation at all. There is an obligation to act in accordance with Jewish law. If you do not know on your own, then it is reasonable to ask a rabbi.
- You can, as long as you are not choosing the decisor based on his answer. Drawing lots among decisors is, in my opinion, completely legitimate.
Discussion on Answer
What do you mean by: “as long as you are not choosing the decisor based on his answer”?
Or,
In principle, it is written that one who follows the leniencies of both this authority and that authority is wicked. True, in the simple sense that is only when the positions contradict one another, but the reasoning exists even without that. As a cognitivist, in my view there is a halakhic truth, and it is not reasonable that the truth is always the lenient view. So if you are not capable enough to rule for yourself, and therefore you choose a decisor and follow him—that is perfectly fine, whether for leniency or stringency. But if you constantly choose the lenient view, then you are sinning against the truth without justification.
Noam,
To choose a decisor based on his answer is basically to always go for the lenient view. You choose the answer you want. My son dreams of creating the reverse responsa project: give me the answer and I will find you the question (that is, the decisor who gives it).
Actually, in my opinion it is very logical that the truth is always the lenient view. Because if there is a serious decisor who investigated thoroughly and reached the conclusion that the lenient view is the truth, then that is the Jewish law, because God could have created the Torah and the rules of halakhic decision-making in such a way that it would not have been possible to arrive at that ruling. Since He did not do so, and there is in fact a legitimate halakhic possibility for leniency, it must be the correct one.
Just as in Israeli law they are constantly trying to refine and sharpen the wording of the law so that judges will not err in understanding it and so that there will be no opening for mistaken interpretations.
Absurd.
According to your view, in every dispute we should rule leniently. And likewise in every Torah-level doubt. Jewish law was created by people through their interpretation, and they can err in either direction. In practice, in the history of Jewish law we have found mistakes toward leniency. That is, a person who ruled leniently and admitted that he had erred (for example, the oath of Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi in Shevuot 26).
By the way, even in Israeli law there is no rule that the law always follows the lenient view.
Why not follow the rabbi who permits it? (As long as he is a halakhic decisor with real knowledge.) Especially when there are several?