[Avodah] submission to an authority

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Saul Newman asked:

> is it or is it not a tenet of Orthodoxy that to be defined as O
> one must submit to some defined human authority?

I never heard of such a tenet. The only authority we must submit to is
Hashem.

> ... MO submitted to RYBS while they had him ...

No, not as far as I know. On the contrary! RYBS encouraged his talmidim not
only to think for themselves, but to pasken for themselves and their
communities too. It is quite common to hear stories of when he declined ...
no, that's not a strong enough word ... he *refused* to answer a question
posed by a newly-minted rabbi, teling him the youngster that it is now
*his* responsibility to analyze the question and to rule on it.

> the controversy is whether OO, which recognizes NO authority over
> them, are in violation of the proposed tenet or not.

This is not the complaint that I've heard against OO. The alleged problem
is not that they reject the authority of any specific individual or group,
but that they have done things which flaunt the authority of
Tradition-as-a-whole to an extent that it puts them beyond the pale.

R' Micha Berger asked:

> But back to the point... doesn't halakhah demand heteronomy?

(That's a new word for me. Had to look it up. Thanks!) Yes, definitely. But
we submit to Hashem. Only to Hashem. And He has commanded us to submit to
His representatives, but in my understanding that refers basically to the
Sanhedrin. End of story.

Akiva Miller
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