Q&A: Holy Lies, Jewish Law, and Money
Holy Lies, Jewish Law, and Money
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
First of all, more power to you, etc., and I won’t go into detail.
1. Given that many in the religious public are loyal to holy lies and do not examine their beliefs out of laziness and fear, and there is a reasonable chance that they are potentially on the verge of becoming nonobservant, do you think it is important that there be people dealing with people leaving religion, as many organizations do, or should there be organizations for potential secular people, or perhaps this should not be dealt with at all?
2. I don’t want to pry into your finances, but is it possible to know roughly how many copies you sold of each book? I’m curious about the size of the bubble called “Michael Abraham,” or whether you have another way of measuring the people who are genuinely interested in your wisdom and who come from the religious public.
3. Regarding halakhic rulings, I have a theory that isn’t very well formulated.
In a standard case where I don’t know the sources of Jewish law, and assuming I do not have a particular rabbi and I haven’t studied the topic, and I need to choose a halakhic decisor, is it more correct to follow decisors who rely on other decisors rather than those with original innovations of their own? For example, if it’s the Chazon Ish or Rabbi Elyashiv, who are more independent and look mainly at the medieval authorities (Rishonim), as opposed to Rabbi Ovadia or Rabbi Feinstein (who, if I remember correctly, also relied on many decisors), then would it be more correct to follow the later decisors—not because the Chazon Ish is of lesser stature, but because perhaps he is in the minority and many disagree with him, and as long as I haven’t clarified the topic it is more reasonable to go with the majority? In contrast, when I go with Rabbi Ovadia, most likely I am going with many decisors. Is that a valid argument?
Answer
- I didn’t understand the question. If there are people—religious, secular, or others—who have questions and doubts, then whoever can should try to answer them.
- I don’t have that. The number of books I sold is not relevant, because only a small portion buy the books. Others read without buying, others read on the site, etc. There is also overlap between buyers of different books.
- I don’t think that’s correct. You should choose whoever seems right to you (“make for yourself a rabbi”). If independence is a good quality for him, it will be a good quality for you too. This is also because the majority is not always right, and there is no obligation to follow the majority unless they were formally counted as part of a ruling body; and also because autonomy is no less important than truth. True, here the autonomy is that of the decisor and not yours, but even choosing an autonomous decisor contains an element of your own autonomy.
Discussion on Answer
I didn’t issue a ruling. I said it.
Regarding 1: What I meant to ask was, based on your familiarity with this generation, what seems more important to you right now?
Regarding 3: I’m assuming I don’t have a rabbi and I don’t want to make one for myself, for my own reasons. In that case, is my assumption correct?
Thank you very much.
*Assuming I don’t want to make myself a rabbi, is my theory correct*
I don’t answer questions that stem from your worldview. You should answer those yourself.
Based on my familiarity with this generation, I don’t assign tasks. There are enough people for everything.
But there really is no source for the practice of “make for yourself a rabbi” in the way people understand it—as appointing one rabbi and following him. So where does ruling that way come from?