[Avodah] Daas Torah

[T613K at aol.com]

I had written:

"This is  a pretty good description of how da'as Torah works, if anyone is  
still wondering about the definition of that term.  The  "personal" opinions  
of a 
big talmid chacham are never just  personal, and tend to gain wide  
acceptance 
among those who  respect him and who accept his authority.  Some  of those  
who 
move in YU circles seem to be allergic to the very idea of "da'as  Torah" but 
whether they use the term or not, that's what  they're following when  they 
accede to the psak of a Torah  scholar whom they respect and whose wisdom  
they 
acknowledge to  be greater than their own. " [--TK]  




To which RRW wrote:
 

>>So are you  saying a big talmid chochom can never be  wrong?<<



>>>>>>
This is a very common misconception of what da'as Torah means.  
 
Right wing Orthodox (RWO) -- the people who tend to actually believe that  
there is such a thing as "da'as Torah"  -- never think that their rabbanim,  
poskim and gedolim are infallible.  It is only people outside the RWO orbit  who 
mistakenly imagine that RWO people believe in something like papal  
infallibility.  
 
The true meaning of da'as Torah, as understood by the RWO Jews who actually  
believe in it, is that the more pious and the greater a talmid chacham is, the 
 more likely it is that he will give you good advice in your personal life 
and  that he will give Klal Yisrael good advice on a communal level.  Naturally  
people in need of good advice and counseling will seek out those who are 
wiser  than themselves, but no one imagines that a gadol can 'never' be wrong.  
 
At times, it is obvious in retrospect that a rav or rebbe who was consulted  
on some matter must have had some spark of ruach hakodesh, some Divine 
guidance  in the words that came out of his mouth, when one sees the sometimes 
amazing  prescience of what some Torah leaders have said, and how things worked out 
in  the end.  At other times -- less often -- it is clear in retrospect that a 
 given gadol made an error in judgment and did not give the best advice.   
Nevertheless the statistical odds are that the more Torah a person knows -- and  
the more he lives according to the dictates of the Torah -- the wiser he will 
be  in those areas that are not directly addressed in the Shulchan Aruch.   
Those talmidim of RYBS who followed his psak regarding WTG for instance, were  
following da'as Torah.
 
 
One other thing I would like to say about da'as Torah is that sometimes it  
is clear in retrospect that the Hashgacha deliberately withheld knowledge or  
ruach hakodesh from gedolim in a certain time, because "gezeira hee  milfanai." 
 But such cases are extremely rare in history.

 
Da'as Torah means that a person who is great in Torah has a feel for what  
the Torah would want, even in circumstances that are not explicitly  addressed 
in the halachic literature.  It does not mean, and has never been  understood 
to mean, that tzaddikim are infallible and can never err.  I  hope that I have 
sufficiently explained it so that this particular  misunderstanding -- which 
has been expressed so many times here on Avodah --  will not arise again in 
these pages.  Even Moshe Rabbeinu was not  infallible.
 
BTW I have noticed that the people who are quick to point out that gedolim  
can be wrong, are the people least likely to consult a rav or posek when issues 
 arise needing Torah wisdom.  This is a grave mistake.  In Pirkei Avos  it 
says "Asei lecha rav."  Even a person who is a big T'C himself sometimes  needs 
to consult another T'C about certain matters.  Condescension towards  rabbanim 
and poskim in general ("well they're not infallibe you know") leads to  a 
lessening of Yiras Shomayim.
 


--Toby  Katz
=============





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