[Avodah] Just what ARE the rules of p'sak anyway?

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger wrote:
> Also, weighting shitos is only part of it.

Something about the phrase "weighting shitos" reminded me of something I heard a long, long time ago, in a place far, far away...

In 1980-82 I was zocheh to learn in the kollel of the Bostoner Rebbe shlit"a, which at the time was located in the Bukharim section of Yerushalayim. It was a halacha-oriented kollel, in which we spent over a year learning Kaytzad Mevorchim.

The Rebbe spoke to us once about the rules of psak. I've forgotten most of it, but one particular point made a deep impression, and I still remember it clearly. The point was about the importance of *local* psak, and the precedents set by previous poskim of that particular makom. The example he gave (these are not his exact words, but he did use these names and places) was that someone paskening in New York - even if he is Sefardi - has to give a lot more weight to Rav Moshe Feinstein's opinion, compared to that same posek if he was paskening in Yerushalayim. And for the same logic, someone paskening in Yerushalayim - even if he is Ashkenazi - has to give a lot more weight to the opinions of the Ben Ish Hai, compared to that same posek if he was in New York.

(I admit that those examples would make more sense if the Ben Ish Hai had lived in Yerushalayim rather than Baghdad. Perhaps the Bostoner actually used ROY's name, but this is the way I remember it.)

Akiva Miller