[Avodah] Horaas Shaah

[Prof. Levine]

At 08:52 PM 12/16/2008, Moshe Y. Gluck wrote:
>One can decide whether TIDE is or is not Horaas Shaah without 
>reading a fair amount of RSRH's writings by knowing lots and lots of 
>Shas, Rishonim, Acharonim, Poskim, Baalei Mussar and Baalei 
>Machshavah. I daresay that both RSRH and RBBL were well qualified in 
>that regard, and their disagreement (if, indeed, RSRH did not mean 
>TIDE as HS) is a manifestation of Shivim Panim, rather than, CV, 
>RBBL's implied ignorance/carelessness.

A person's pesak is based on the information the poseik has at hand 
at the time that he decides something. If a gadol is given incomplete 
or incorrect information, then one might expect that his pesak would 
be influenced by this.

I recall someone telling me that some of things that Reb Moshe 
decided about medical issues were based on incorrect of incomplete 
medical information that he obtained from others. I do not recall 
what the issues were anymore, nor am I asserting the Reb Moshe was 
"wrong." Still, unless one has accurate and complete information, 
then one can get an incorrect or incomplete picture. After all, don't 
we find that poskim disagree with each other at times based on the 
fact that someone who deals with an issue later says that the other 
poseik was not aware of this or that. Is not the fact that some 
paskened that one could turn on lights on Yom Tov an example of this.

I am not implying "ignorance/carelessness" on the part of RBBL. I am 
saying that he must have decided based upon what he knew about TIDE 
and thought that what he knew was accurate. This may well have been 
the case. On the other, without being familiar with much of RSRH's 
writings, it is difficult for me to understand how one can render a 
correct evaluation of TIDE.

YL

PS.  I do not understand the attitude that I think you and others 
have that if one asks a question about something that a gadol did 
that one is immediately implying that he made a mistake, was 
ignorant, careless or whatever. Cannot one ask in order to understand.

I used to ask Rav S. Schwab sheilos.  If I did not understand 
something, I would ask him to explain things. He would do this 
patiently. He never took the approach that I was challenging him or 
felt that he was wrong. Indeed, this is why I called him, because I 
knew that he would patiently explain things to me, not push me off 
with "You have heard my pesak, that is it."

When I lived in Elizabeth, NJ I recall at least one instance in which 
I asked Rav P. M. Teitz something. He gave me an answer and I then 
asked him a question about his reply. His face lit up at my question 
and he then proceeded to elaborate on his original response. He 
didn't dismiss me with "How dare you question what I told you!"


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20081217/34ed36a3/attachment-0002.htm>