[Avodah] R Moshe Feinstein as posek hador

[Danny Schoemann]

On Wed, Aug 07, 2019 at 06:13:09PM +0000, Ben Bradley via Avodah wrote:
> I've come across a event described in a couple of medical halacha books
> which I find intriguing for reasons unrelated to medical halacha. In 1948
> there was an outbreak of meningitis in Jerusalem with a limited supply
> of penicillin, less than the amount needed to treat all the present
> cases. Rav Herzog, the chief rabbi, called Rav Moshe Feinstein in New
> York to ask how to prioritise the use of life saving penicillin...

> Why did R Herzog not ask the chazon ish or other posek in EY? ...
> And, if it was a pure question of pure seniority/shoulders in psak...

Um... based on https://tinyurl.com/wikipedia-he-dateline Rav Herzog
disagreed with the Chazon Ish regarding the dateline - about 2 years
before this incident happened.

Seemingly RH he didn't feel that he was subservient to the CI.

(Strangely enough, even though the CI was elevated (by whom?) to the
status of Uber-posek (similar, at some level, to the Chofetz Chaim and
the Vilna Gaon and the Bes Yosef) I wonder how many people pasken 100%
like the CI (or the CC or the VG or the BY). There seems to be a lot
of picking and choosing, a la "oh we do THIS as per the Ari
z"l/Gro/Minhag/______. Maybe that's more for Areivim... - or another
thread.)

- Danny