[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel and Gra on 2 Matzos vs.3 Matzos/Rabbi shopping

[Chana Luntz]

RAF writes:

> R'n CL has posted some human interest stories with 
> considerable detail. While 
> they should prompt fellow Ovedim, especially those who are 
> called upon to 
> guide people in such situations (rabbonim, dayyonim, but also 
> chaplains and good friends), to think deeply about these issues, the 
> stories are neither about pessaq nor about halakhah, but about the
human interface.

I'm not sure I agree.  I would have said that psak is where halacha
collides with the human interface, and that these cases are hence
precisely about psak.  And not only that, there are lots of aspects of
halacha that require the human context to be taken into account - hefsed
meruba, bsha'a hadchak, darkei shalom, meshum eiva and on and on the
list goes.

> Regarding the above quoted question, R'nCL herself suggests 
> that one chooses a  rav based on a common hashkafic outlook or by
accident of 
> history (being the right guy at the right time). I agree, but, as she
indicated 
> herself, I, too, would categorically exclude choosing someone based on
the 
> particular desired question to a particular question.

Umm, I didn't think I did.  I thought that, to the contrary, I suggested
that for some people, a particular question may be so important to them
that it shapes their whole hashkafic outlook on life, and hence they
would indeed categorically exclude choosing someone based on the
particular desired answer to a particular question.

 Essentially, with choosing a rav, we choose a relationship with a
particular derekh in Torah. 
> However, let me just add that being a meiqil or a ma'hmir doesn't
sound like a 
> derekh to me.

Being machmir in ben adam l'chavero doesn't sound like a derech to you?
Isn't that what R' Yisroel Salant was famous for?


> It is the combination of this derekh and the particular facts 
> of the shoel 
> that prompt the posseq to give a particular answer. Hence, 
> two shoalim and/or 
> two possqim can give different answers to a similar question 
> and no one will 
> be wrong, and yet halakhah wouldn't be ambivalent.

You don't think one could categorise poskim on the basis of their known
tendency (either less or more) to take the human dimension into account?
At least in certain areas of halacha?  For example that some great
poskim seem somehow always to be the ones who come up with solutions (eg
on shabbas) for the sick, the elderly, the poor, the infirm?  That is
not to say that such poskim appear always to find a solution for a
particular shoel.  I am not suggesting by this that "where there is a
rabbinic will, there is a halachic way".  But that eg the body of
literature that comes from a particular posek shows a repeated tendency,
over and over again, towards what might be deemed a heterim in a
particular area, whereas the literature of others does not read that
way.  In fact, if I say - heterim on shabbas for the sick and infirm,
does not a name spring to mind?  If one says heterim for difficult
marital situations, do not other names spring to mind? Is that not a
form of derech?  If Marc Shapiro in his article notes that ROY at the
time of the Yom Kippur war worked tirelessly to ensure that not one
single aguna remained out of that war, is that not a form of derech? 

> KT,
> -- 
> Arie Folger
> http://www.ariefolger.googlepages.com

Regards

Chana
>