Daas Torah | Imamother

sarahd ↓

Wed, Jul 12 2006, 4:19 am

Motek wrote:

What's peculiar about this view that that R' Chaim Volozhiner (Ruach Chaim 1:4) writes:

Quote:

It is forbidden for a student to accept his Rebbe's (teacher's) words if he has questions on them.

In other words, according to R' Chaim V. there is no such thing as blindly accepting what someone tells you.

Interesting. I understood your quote to mean that if a talmid doesn't have enough faith in his Rebbe to accept his words blindly, then he takeh shouldn't be asking him questions. I.e., one should ask Daas Torah only from a Rav to whom he is mevatel himself enough to accept whatever the Rav says without question.

↑ sarahd ↓

Wed, Jul 12 2006, 4:21 am

mali wrote:

mummyof6 wrote:

You don't have to take the advice, because it is not halacha, but you will only do yourself a favour if you do.

If you're the one choosing when to listen to him, and when not to listen to him, you can't go around waving this "Da'as Torah" flag. Just say that that is what appeals to you. Don't go around telling other people it's Torah.

Why? It is the Torah's opinion on what you should do, but as it's not halacha, you're not required to follow it if you think you are smarter.

↑ sarahd ↓

Wed, Jul 12 2006, 4:29 am

BTW, the Jewish Observer had a couple of articles in the December 05/Kislev 5766 edition on a related topic - about how, when and what to ask, and the difference between a psak and advice. I wanted to post a link, but the page seems not to be available. For those who want to try anyhow: http://www.shemayisrael.com/je.....s.htm

↑ shalhevet ↓

Wed, Jul 12 2006, 8:24 am

Motek wrote:

Of course often their ideas "work"! That's not surprising. If they are highly intelligent people and they are devoted to learning Torah, they may be granted siyata dishmaya in their advice.

It is not advice. It is the way the Torah looks at an issue. If it is a true Talmid Chacham and tzaddik he is always granted siyata dishmaya.

Quote:

But of course you are aware of rabbonim who give bad marital advice, bad chinuch advice etc. and articles are written about this, training is suggested for rabbis who need to counsel their congregants etc.

I don't know which rabbonim you are talking about. Today anyone who is a knesset member, fund raiser or marital advisor calls himself rabbi. There are rabbis with congregations who have reached a certain minimal level of knowledge in order to get smicha. I am talking about talmidei chachamim who have spent ten or twenty or sixty years learning Torah, as well as working on themselves to reach incredible levels of mitzva observance, both between man and G-d, and between man and his fellow.[/quote]

↑ Motek ↓

Thu, Jul 13 2006, 4:59 pm

mummyof6 wrote:

I am not talking

Quote:

about all manner of political, financial and other issues unrelated to Mussar or personal growth.

But you referred to Daas Torah in connection to Gush Katif while mixing in halachos about pikuach nefesh. So which was it, Halacha or Daas Torah?

mummyof6 wrote:

It is not advice. It is the way the Torah looks at an issue. If it is a true Talmid Chacham and tzaddik he is always granted siyata dishmaya.

Is that what the talmid chacham says, or is that what YOU call it? In other words, could you ask your rav (who you says has daas Torah) whether he considers his non-halachic answers as "daas Torah? I'd love to hear his response.

Either way, I'd like to hear your source for saying that this is what "Daas Torah" is. As mentioned earlier, this phrase, as it is currently used by people like yourself, is a recent invention.

As for ALWAYS being granted siyata dishmaya - the Sanhedrin can make a mistake and there are halachos about what to do if they make a mistake. Rabbonim can and do make mistakes. Are you claiming that your gedolim/rabbonim are infallible?

Quote:

I don't know which rabbonim you are talking about.

I am talking about legitimate, chashuve rabbonim that you would agree qualify as rabbonim. Mishpacha magazine had an article recently about giving advice and training for rabbis. This is because a person can be a talmid chacham and kind but give bad marital and other advice.

↑ Motek ↓

Thu, Jul 13 2006, 5:11 pm

sarahd wrote:

Nope. R' Chaim V. and Misnagdim in general were quite opposed to the Chasidic bitul and blind faith in a Rebbe. That's why the new "blind faith" in the "daas Torah" of gedolim is perturbing.

If you look at the context in which R' Chaim V. wrote it you will see that he writes that Torah is a "war" (milchamto shel Torah) and it's a matter of "survival of the fittest" and both the teachers and the students are "warriors".

He refers to the 48 Ways with which you acquire Torah (Avos), one of which is "ha'machkim es rabbo" - that he makes his teachers wise through his sharp questions.

Hence, he says, it is forbidden for a student to accept his teacher's words when he has questions on them! And sometimes the student is right!

sarahd wrote:

It is the Torah's opinion on what you should do, but as it's not halacha, you're not required to follow it if you think you are smarter.

No. It's the rav's personal opinion UNLESS he says it's a halachic opinion in which case he can or will provide halachic sources for what he says. And since it's his personal opinion, you are not bound to follow it.

↑ sarahd ↓

Wed, Sep 06 2006, 7:27 am

Look what I just read at http://www.cross-currents.com/.....rsal/ (comment 9)

comment by Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein in his posting:

Quote:

Many ideas fail to make it to print not because they were not available, but because they were so taken for granted, that they were not discussed.

An elucidation of this statement:

Quote:

Still another example is the much maligned concept of daas Torah. In some circles it is a rite of entry to renounce all belief in it, and see it as an idea floated by rabbis in the late nineteenth century to shore up waning authority. After all, the phrase (in the context that it is used today) did not appear at all until then. In fact, as many have demonstrated (most recently in that wonderful defense of haredim in Azure http://www.azure.org.il/ [free registration required]) hundreds of years of Jewish life are full of the notion that Torah scholars should weigh in on all sorts of topics in Jewish living, even when they could not back up their advice with a formal halachic argument. The concept of bowing to the Torah-generated intuition of a Torah scholar whose mind was shaped by Torah reasoning was a long-standing fixture of Jewish life. Because no vocabulary was even necessary to talk about what people took for granted, some in later times would assume that the concept had never been there.

He's not referring exactly to the sort of daas Torah Motek is, but I think the general idea is an answer to your question, Motek.

↑ Motek ↓

Thu, Sep 07 2006, 11:58 am

sarahd wrote:

hundreds of years of Jewish life are full of the notion that Torah scholars should weigh in on all sorts of topics in Jewish living, even when they could not back up their advice with a formal halachic argument.

Of course! I don't contest that.

Quote:

The concept of bowing to the Torah-generated intuition of a Torah scholar whose mind was shaped by Torah reasoning was a long-standing fixture of Jewish life.

Yet:

In the "Ruach Chaim" of Rav Chaim Volozhiner on the Mishna in Avos, "Marbeh eitzah marbeh sevunah," he says that when seeking advice, you should ask numerous people, collect all the different opinions, and then use their collective wisdom to make a decision for yourself, since you ultimately know your situation better than anybody, but others are perhaps wiser than you, so if combine their wisdom and apply it to your self-knowledge, you will have good advice.

This was certainly the approach in Litvishe circles up until recently.

chavamom ↓

Thu, Sep 07 2006, 1:21 pm

Re: does da'as torah = infalibility. R. Berel Wein had an article in the JO a number of years ago about this. There is no such concept. However, you can have a rav give a p'sak or advice that is in error, but still be 'ratzon Hashem'. A famous example is rabbis that advised people to stay in Europe rather than go the America in the 30's. We do not understand Hashem's plan or why some survived and others did not, but the rabbonim were instruments of Hashem.

↑ sarahd

Mon, Sep 11 2006, 5:33 am

Yes. I was commenting on a blog yesterday about a hanhaga that's been practiced for hundreds of years. I wanted to write that the *gedolim" of 1000 years ago also agreed, but then realized that the term would be so anachronistic! Who thinks of R' Hai Gaon as a "gadol hador"??

I wonder when this term originated.

↑ shalhevet ↓

Mon, Sep 11 2006, 5:57 am

I found a very interesting explanation about Emunas Chachomim/ Da'as Torah in Yalkut Lekach Tov, Parashas Shoftim, p.19-25.

It is in Hebrew, but fairly easy to read. If I have time I will post some of the main points.

About gedolim, there are tefilos in which we daven for our sons to be 'gedolim beTorah'.
I think there were other titles in the past like Av beis din and Nasi (specific positions rather than subjective titles) in the time of the mishna and gemora, and later Rosh Kol B'nei Hagola is used. Also the Gaonim.

↑ chavamom

Mon, Sep 11 2006, 12:45 pm

Motek wrote:

By the way, another misnomer and one that is related to this thread is the designation "gadol ha'dor", which like "daas Torah," is a recently coined phrase.

When did the term 'tzaddik hador' come into play? I only started hearing that one in the past 15 years or so, always in connection with the Lub. rebbe.

↑ Motek ↓

Tue, Sep 12 2006, 11:04 am

I found this (google):

Quote:

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught the concept of the Tzaddik Ha-Dor ("Tzaddik of the Generation"), which, in Hasidic thought, is the idea that in every generation, a special, saintly person is born who could potentially become the Jewish Messiah, if conditions were right in the world.

As for "gadol ha'dor" it's an old term. Haman in the Gemara is called a gadol ha'dor 8) It means prominent person.

And yes, the newly revised definition of "gadol ha'dor" is used anachronistically rather often. If you pay attention you'll see it misused in stories, lectures etc.

↑ mali

Tue, Sep 12 2006, 11:26 am

I remember many years ago, when my family sat around and read a letter my sister got from her seminary telling her all the rules and guidelines. We got to a line that said they may not hang pictures of Gedolim in the dormitory bedrooms. My father chuckled.

When I started raising children in Israel, I finally understood why he laughed back then.

וד"ל

Ok, not the nicest post embarrassed

↑ Motek ↓

Tue, Sep 12 2006, 11:34 am

naughty mali Twisted Evil

chavamom wrote:

I only started hearing that one in the past 15 years or so, always in connection with the Lub. rebbe.

Actually, the Lubavitcher Rebbe is referred to as the Nasi Ha'Dor, a term used way back with Moshe Rabeinu (see Rashi on Chukas for ex).

↑ Motek ↓

Tue, Nov 21 2006, 11:32 am

Agudah Convention Takes Aim at Blogs

Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel, on the theme of this years' Agudah Convention, "Torah Wisdom/Torah Authority: Are We Losing the Connection?":

Quote:

"In recent years, though," the Agudah leader observes, "due to a variety of factors, the authority of daas Torah has been significantly undermined, even within our own chareidi circles. Most troubling has been the proliferation of Internet 'blogs' where misguided individuals feel free to spread every bit of rechilus and loshon hora about rabbonim and roshei yeshiva, all with the intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community. It is most appropriate for an organization like Agudath Israel, whose very essence was built on the recognition of the authority of Torah leaders, to address this issue head on, and formulate concrete plans to reinvigorate public awareness of this essential element of the Torah way of life."

Very interesting theme for the convention!

Ribbie Danzinger ↓

Tue, Nov 21 2006, 6:16 pm

Just read through this whole thread (started before I was "born" on imamother) and I found it very interesting indeed.

I have a few things to say.

Quote:

1) It says in the Torah that a person with a question should go to the chachamim (wise men) of the time. There were elders and judges from the time of Moshe Rabbeinu.

I think that this is a crucial point in the whole debate taking into consideration that the elders and judges were appointed by Moshe Rabeinu himself (who was appointed by Hashem).

This is the big difference between then and now since we no longer have true semicha any more. Someone without such semicha cannot be considered as having true "da'as Torah" however great he is. This, of course, is directly opposed to Mummyof6 hypothesis that we ask people of a lesser stature to decide who is great. No-one can imagine the quantum leap of difference between a talmid chacham and a rav who is a posek; between a rav who is a baki and someone with ruach hakodesh etc.

When we use the expression da'as Torah it is probably like a child saying that "my mommy's cooking is better than yours!" When the leader of Agudas Yisroel talks about da'as Torah he may be using the expression in a way that when compared to the way Rav Elyoshiv uses the expression is like a college graduate talks physics in comparison to Einstein.