For a variety of reasons, it has become apparent to me that I need to learn at a minimum, hilkhot shabbat and hilkhot kashrut sooner rather than later. In general, I am a big fan of knowing halakha, rather than having to ask a rabbi every last little detail. To know halakha is to take responsiblity for one's mitzvah observance and the relationship between oneself and God as defined by mitzvah observance.
That said, it emerges that there is actually a great deal of power to be had by abdicating the responsibility to know the halakha and simply asking one's rabbi, since psak is binding and there ceases to be any question about the permissibility of a given course of action.
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3 comments:
Very interesting insight. I would love to find out what you think about how far rabanim take the power of abdication and the nature of modern rabbinic Judaism and such.
Huzzah!
Is there a specific rule forbidding one's own psak from being binding on one's self (assuming that one is qualified as a posek)? Could two like-minded, qualified people study the issues together and then pasken for each other?
Orin -- Let me think about that in some detail. Briefly, part of being a good rabbi is having the courage to put one's foot down without abusing one's power.
FleurDeLis28 -- At the very least, being one's own posek is discouraged, since there is an innate conflict of interest. (Eh, that pot is still kosher. Eh, my wife is tehorah.) I'm not sure whether two like-minded qualified people could conspire to beat the system, but I'm sure it's been tried. :)
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