[Avodah] Have you perhaps become more machmir or more meikil over time?

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 12:50:49AM +0000, Professor L. Levine wrote:
:     Have you perhaps become more machmir or more meikil over time?

:     Heaven forfend. I don't know what those words mean. There is no such
:     thing as a machmir and a meikil. Anyone who talks in that language
:     is not a posek. There is a halacha and there is an assessment of
:     pros and cons and different positions and then you apply it in a
:     concrete situation. Sometimes the ruling is more stringent, sometimes
:     it's less stringent. But the categories of machmir and meikil are
:     extra-halachic. These words shouldn't even be bandied about.

: This response certainly flies in the face of the many, many conversations
: and assertions in which persons or practices are designated by this one
: or that one as being meikil or machmir.

But he doesn't say anything against the notion of someone being machmir or
meiqil on any specific question. And I am surprised so many of us would
assume he could have -- such language is all over the posqim and shu"t.

He objects to categorizing a poseiq being "a machmir" -- that the poseiq
has an intentional inclination to be strict, or conversly, "a meiqil"
who has an intentional bias toward leniency. Rather, a poseiq makes "an
assessment of pros and cons [of?] different positions and then ... apply
it in a concrete situation. Sometimes the ruling is more stringent..."

The question is whether his own pesaq shows just such a general trend
and has it changed over time. and RJDB accurately answers that the
assumption behind the question is off.

There are exceptions to that rule, dinim where halakhah tells us to be
meiqil (aveilus etc...) and dinim like eishes ish where a poseiq is more
inclined to play it safe -- at least when the case is addreessed
lekhat-chilah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             When you come to a place of darkness,
micha at aishdas.org        you don't chase out the darkness with a broom.
http://www.aishdas.org   You light a candle.
Fax: (270) 514-1507        - R' Yekusiel Halberstam of Klausenberg zt"l