[Avodah] kitnoyot

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 11:30:40PM +0300, Lisa Liel wrote:
: >It's also impossible to learn much AhS (or even MB) without encoutnering
: >cases where the savara-ly weaker pesaq is supported because it's the
: >accepted ruling in practice.
: 
: I'm pretty sure that's R' Yosei and not Abayei, but either way, puq chazi
: is only when there's a doubt about the halakha. Not a principle that
: we have to act on the basis of what other people are doing. An idea
: that would enshrine errors and make fixing errors virtually impossible.

You are only discussing the absolutes, the case where the halakhah isn't
known, and that where it is, but common practice differs.

But in the part I left above, I described the gray area. There are cases
where the logic for one position is more compelling than the other,
but not muchrach. In fact, this is more common than a case where two
rishonim or noted acharonim disagree and one opinion is found to be
outright wrong. Between the brilliance of the people involved and the
"peer review" as to which ideas reach us, it is very rare for us to find
a true incontrovertable mistake, and even harder to know if we really did,
or if it is our own assessment that's in error.

In that situation, where we have to choose between multiple viable shitos,
there are a number of things a poseiq would weigh. Different schools of
pesaq may give each different weights. This kind of comparison of apples
and oranges requires real shiqul hadaas, and is why pesaq is an art, not
an algorithm.

This is my usual list of categories of factors that go into pesaq.

1- Textualiam
    1a- Logicalness of the rationale
    1b- Authority of those who back each postion: majority, expertise
        (eg the Rambam and Rosh carry more weight than some other
        rishonim)

2- Mimeticism

3- Aggadic concerns -- whether it's chassidim not wearing tefillin on ch"m
   or some of RSRH's innovations.

My point in #2 is that there are many times that we continue following
what we do because it has a sound textual basis -- even though some
other shitah may have a stronger such basis.

And again, this is minhag, not halakhah. The whole topic of qitniyos
rests on mimeticism, not formal halachic reasoning.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Problems are not stop signs,
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