[Avodah] Halacha is about sources. Lo BaShamayim hi.

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha Berger wrote:

> LAD, this is because halakhah is a legal process. As long as an
> answer is a valid result of that process, it is just as "right".
> The better answer is the one that has more authority, not the one
> that is more logical.

I'd like to cite a story in support of the above, namely, how the Baalei Masora took their three most reliable Sifrei Torah and compared them. Where any differences were found, they followed whatever was found in the majority of the three. When they were done, their newly reconstructed kosher Sefer Torah automatically invalidated all three of the others.

The story (assuming I remember it correctly) is not only illogical, but with all due respect, it borders on absurd. But because it was the valid result of a legal process, it has more authority, and is followed even today.

(On a practical level, however, nowadays we are very confused about which processes are legal and valid, and which are not. This has led to a very wide disparity among the poskim concerning how they arrive at their decisions. At one extreme, a posek might simply tally up the votes of every major and minor posek who ever voiced an opinion; at the other extreme, a posek might dare to go against the rishonim if he thinks his logic is sound. And so it goes...)

Akiva Miller

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