Tuesday, November 10, 2009

One More on Ms. Gordon's Post

I just wanted to clarify something that I think might be unclear from her post. There is a fallacy out there that I noticed when marking my halacha tests that is relevant here. In response to a question asking them to practically rule on different scenarios, a number of students wrote "one opinion said it's OK, & one says it's prohibited - so it's OK". Modern Orthodoxy doesn't mean that as long there is an opinion that permits something, that is who we follow. When Ms. Gordon traced her position as relying on multiple minority opinions, she did not mean (we talked) that she just went "kula shopping", found the most lenient opinion on every issue and adopted it. She followed the proper protocol, which is the following:

Everyone should have a halachik (or at least a Torah) authority to whom they direct their significant halachik questions, and their practice should be based on those conversations. For those of you who don't yet have this figure in your life - most of you - the default posek should be your parents' posek, probably your shul Rabbi. Once you follow this procedure, there is nothing wrong with responsibly choosing a posek who tends to be lenient in most areas, just realize that he may one day surprise you.

If you are uncomfortable approaching your Rabbi, the best thing to do is get past the discomfort. Those of you who have been in my halacha class have hopefully started this process - those who I teach currently hopefully will soon. In the meantime, it's certainly OK to talk to your teachers about these issues, and if you want, to ask us to check with our halachik authorities.

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