[Avodah] The Concept of Authority

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jan 03, 2010 at 04:46:55PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: (I have a vague memories that some would hold this category to include
: decrees issued even more recently than the Gemara. I personally do not
: understand how the Torah's law to obey the chachamim could possibly
: apply to a chacham who does not have "real semicha". I suppose it might
: apply if a generation had one single undisputed leader. But we have not
: had any such leaders. Some point to the Shulchan Aruch as an example
: of a univerally accepted authority, but I think the Rama disproves
: that. "Universally respected" is not the same thing as "universally
: accepted".)

This is also address by the previous post.

The SA+Mapah as a unit is universally accepted -- in a heuristic sense.
We do often pasqen differently than the SA. But a poseiq wouldn't do so
without strong reasons. It's a major factor when weighing pros and cons,
but not the only one.

In that sense, we don't treat it like a national BD, where there are no
mitigating factors that can offset following it. Ask the zaqein mamrei.
(Barring annulment of the pesaq by another such BD, of course.)

The modern shadow of the real semichah with a real BD hagadol is a more
heuristic rule rather than a hard-and-fast one. Just as nimnu vegamru
is hard-and-fast, but azlinan basar ruba by looking around at various
sefarim is not.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
micha at aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
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