[Avodah] daas torah and voting

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 03:03:42PM -0500, Rich, Joel wrote:
> : Rather that the authority of the melekh fell to the Sanhedrin when
> the melukhah ended, and from the Sanhedrin to the Rabbanim.

: What an interesting formulation. What is the source that gives this
: "fall" halachic force?

See http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/observ-on-daat.html by R'
Yitzchak Kasdan. It is in reply to a discussion started in
http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/cohen_DaatTorah.pdf by R' Alfred Cohen,
and I presume the latter it from the RJJ Journal since RAC is its editor.

RDC's sources are given in fn 11. The Maharil (shu"t #161), Maharal
and Rivash write that a visiting rav may not assume the mantle of
leadership. What does that say about the local rav? See Rema YD 245:22.

According to fn 15, RDC is in "Maaseh Avos Siman Labanim" I, and
translated in "Templated for Ages" pg 33 (pub ArtScrioll) under the
title "The Crown of Torah and the Crown of Kingship; the Hasmoneans and
the Concept of Daas Torah".

This is also the position (or at least too similar for me to notice the
difference) that RYBS had in his hesped for R' Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky
("HaTzitz vehaChoshen", Divrei Hagut VeHaaracha pp 191-192). Of course,
that predates RYBS's split from Agudah. WWII changed his opinion on
daat Torah sharply, so I don't know if this point remained or not. The
one who bears the words "Qodesh laH'" on the tzitz is the one who bears
the names of the shevatim on the choshen. Spiritual leadership means
temporal leadership. And both were present in RCOG....

In searching for that last reference, I found
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2008/10/daas-torah-kingship-review-article.html
on RDE's blog. Judging from the comments seems I'm not the only one who
feels they're the same shitah. I also found there a link to excerpts
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=12557&pgnum=7

Mind you this formulation arguably only applies to communal decisions,
not extrahalachic personal decisions. Or maybe I should say personal
decisions that revolve around metzi'us questions rather than AYH, since
I think that few of us would question the role of asking a rav about
which course of action is better al pi haTorah even without a question
of issur.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
http://www.aishdas.org   But if he relaxes them for but one minute,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter