[Avodah] New king

[Michael Makovi]

> R' Mikha'el Makovi wrote:
> "I personally think it was a new king."
>
> It seems that this is a machlokes in Chazal.  I'm not so sure we are
> entitled to personal opinions.
>
> Michoel Kelmar

First, thanks for the smicha!

As for the personal opinion bit, my rabbi gave a talk on this the other week:

On the one hand, people often think, erroneously, that they are
entitled to an opinion on a Torah matter. The reason he says, is that
(he cited a source for the following, but I forget it) Torah is our
heritage, and so it is really is part of us. Therefore, we think we
are entitled to an opinion on it. Sometimes of course this is true.
But more often, we are woefully under-learned on a subject but don't
know it. He related a story of a man (an experience mattress salesman
of a few decades) who argued a halachic point with someone (much more
knowledgeable in halacha); this mattress-salesman asserted that
something ought to be the halacha, because that's what felt right to
him. So when someone wanted to buy a mattress, and the mattress
salesman gave his opinion, the halacha expert (who knew nothing of
mattresses) came up and said the mattress salesman was wrong. The
mattress salesman said "What do you know about mattresses?", and other
man responded, "And what do you know about halacha?".

On the one hand, he said, Torah is not simply a cold academic
endeavor, but rather a way of life. One cannot simply know that the
Maharal says this and Rav Hirsch says that and Rambam says this and
Ramban says that, etc. One must, at some point, have his own opinion
to live by. Torah is not something for one to simply be able to rattle
off all the shitot without one having his own shita.

So it's a difficult balance. My personal answer, not necessarily my
rabbi's, is that one can and should espouse his own shita, but still
give full attention and respect to the alternative. Before rejecting,
one must investigate it seriously. Therefore, I personally think the
king was a new one, but I (in theory) know about the alternative. I
say in theory because the fact is, I don't know the alternative, just
like I don't know a million other things. But in the end of the day, I
still need to hold something. I can't learn anything from the Torah if
the Torah to me is a haze of conflicting shitot that I hold nothing
regarding them.

Mikha'el Makovi