[Avodah] Rabbi Shopping

[Moshe Y. Gluck]

R'n CL:
"This friend of mine went for a number of years in her marriage without
having kids.  She and he went to doctors who checked them out and told her
basically, that she was ovulating during her shiva nekiim.  She went to her
Rav who told her there was nothing that could be done and just to keep
trying.  Some time later she got in touch with (not via her Rav) a certain
Dayan, who looked at the case, realised that she could get a clean bedika on
day four, allowed her to do a hefsek tahara on day four, and hey presto,
today, two beautiful kids."



A Rav once told me that the Issur of rabbi shopping is when you have a
Chaticha of Basar, and you take it to one Rav and he says Assur, and you
take it to a different Rav who says Muttar (like in Berachos 63b). But, if
you ask Rav A about a Hanhagah (for example, if you are allowed to sit in
the diagonal of Daled Amos Shel Hamispallel) and he says it is Assur, you
are allowed to ask another Rav, and if he says Muttar you may follow him.
(BTW, in R' AF's situation of a Tay-Sachs child, I think that the question
of whether one may Rabbi shop or not, might be Gufa Talui in the Machlokes
between R' MF and R' EW - no?) In R'n CL's friend's situation, it clearly
was a question of Hanhagah, and therefore Muttar. If she had done a Bedikah
on the fourth day, and brought it to the first Rav, who said Tamei - it
would then be Assur to go to the second Rav to ask him about that particular
Bedikah. Next month, though, she could go to the second Rav, first. 

KT,
MYG