[Avodah] infallibility of chazal

[Daniel Israel]

Eli Turkel wrote:
> In a slightly differenr vein I heard in the name of Rav Elyashiv
> (from his s-i-l) that one needs to accept the opinion of modern medicine but
> not of individual doctors
> i.e. one distinguishes between universally accepted truths and individual
> opinions and theories.

I wonder what the context was.  I assume "accept" here can't mean 
"accept as true."  Obviously the state of the art in medicine can be 
wrong in a way that the consensus of Chazal can't be.  (I could refine 
that statement to deal with your example of the mistaken Sanhedrin, but 
I assume my basic point is clear.)  I assume the point is that we have 
some obligation to go by the best available information.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu