[Mesorah] She'ata / Sha'ata

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Seth Mandel wrote:

> Saying that a godol does not know linguistics is not insulting
> his gadlus.  It is akin to saying that a godol does not know
> shechita or safrus.  The example I use for chareidim is to ask
> if they would let their RY do mila on their son.

This made a lot of sense when I first saw it, but not after I pondered it a bit.

The gadol and the RY and the posek do not actually *DO* the shechita or the safrus or the mila. And the reason why is because these acts require specific training for the hand.

But the shochet and the sofer and the mohel *DO* bring their questions to the rav for a ruling. "Should I do it this way or that way?" - This is the province of the rav. The rav may consult with an expert shochet, and expert sofer, and an expert mohel, and ask what are the common practices or the efficient methods, but the final decision on right and wrong belongs to the rav.

If so, then the linguist can offer a great deal of insight to the rav, just as the technician can explain his Shabbos-mode device to the rav, and the rav will still be the one to decide what to do.

>From this perspective, my preference is to daven the way the rav tells me, and not the way the linguist says. No matter how correct and sincere the linguist might be, it is the rav who is to perform the shikul hadaas of deciding whether this factor is more or less important than that factor, and so on.

Akiva Miller

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