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

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

<<Based on this paragraph alone, I would say that Rav Elyashiv's approach is
to analyze the act based purely on the melachos involved, while Rav
Auerbach considers other factors too. This does not define either of them
as a meikil or a machmir. (Do I really need to cite the many rabbis over
the centuries who said, "I'm not being meikil about Yom Kippur, chalila!
I'm being machmir on sakana!") >>

All this statement does is make the phrases machmir and mekil meaningless
and so the entire discussion is vacuous.  I had assumed that we were using
machmir and mekil in the usual colloquial sense. Machmir is one who takes
the more stringent choice meaning prohibiting something.while mekil means
choosing the lenient choice meaning being more permissive to the individual.
We all agree that any real psak is based on sources and so the difference
between mekil and machmir is the weight given to the different component.

One well known case involves agunot. Some dayanim are machmir meaning they
make it very hard for the woman to remarry because they don't want to take
the chance of allowing a mmarried woman to remarry (and some have been
quoted to lose their own olam haba). Other dayanim are mekil to look for
heterim for the woman to remarry.

I am sure you can redine the words machmir and mekil so they don't apply
but this is the usual definition of machmir and mekil.

A famous example is the psak of ROY on bishul akum for sefardim. The
mechaber paskens that to avoid bishul akum the Jew has to essentially
participate in the cooking and not just light the fire (as per Rama). The
modern consequence is that a sefardi cannot eat is most restaurants in
Israel and certainly outside Israel where the cooks tend to be nonJews. ROY
combines several quasi-heterim to give a heter even against the Mechaber.



regarding objectivity in psak see the following quote from RYBS

...I have undertaken the research into the halakhic phase of this problem,
which is fraught with grave political and social implications on the
highest level of public relations, with utmost care and seriousness. Yet, I
cannot lay claim to objectivity if the latter should signify the absence of
axiological premises and a completely emotionally detached attitude. The
halakhic inquiry, like any other cognitive theoretical performance, does
not start out from the point of absolutely zero as to sentimental attitudes
and value judgments. There always exists in the mind of the researcher an
ethico-axiological background against which the contours of the subject
matter in question stand out more clearly. In all fields of human
intellectual endeavor there is always an intuitive approach which
determines the course and method of the analysis. Not even in exact
sciences (particularly in their interpretative phase) is it possible to
divorce the human element from the formal aspect. Hence this investigation
was also undertaken in a similar subjective mood. From the very outset I
was prejudiced in favor of the project of the Rabbinical Council of America
and I could not imagine any halakhic authority rendering a decision against
it. My inquiry consisted only translating a vague intuitive feeling into
fixed terms of halakhic discursive thinking."
-- 
Eli Turkel
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