Truehonesty
Member
cantoresq: Your point that all Gedolim must agree if that is Divine will is ludicrous. In the same way that there can be machlokes in halacha which even you agree is under the auspicies of the Rabbis, because ??? ???? ???? ?????? ???? so too in matters of hashkafa and secular subjects.
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A few points in response:
1. The Halachik system allows for disputes and deals with them systemically. “Divine will” vis-a-vis Halacha is to have disputes. One cannot legitimately say as proper hashkafa that G-d does not want/accept disputes in Halacha. Now, either Jewish thought accepts the possibility of Halachik dispute or it doesn’t. We happen to know the definitive answer to this question. As to other issues of hashkafa or decisions not expressly goverened by Halacha, whether we know the answer or not, there has to be a definitive divine will for those who believe in Da’as Torah. They have to understand that G-d had a preference for either Barkat or Porush, or for Obama or McCain. (It is unknown if Divine will was fulfilled in those instances) That’s what is meant when a Gadol pronounces Da’as Torah as opposed to simply offering his mere opinion or giving advice. I don’t think you or any other proponent of Da’as Torah believes that it is another term for a rabbis opinion. You take it as something far more authoritative. But for it to be that authoritative, there cannot be any dispute among the conduits of said Divine will or else Divine will is a nebulous concept.
2. If you accept such heterodoxy (i.e. Ger must follow the statements of the Gerrer Rebbe as they are correct for Ger, Satmer the Satmer Rabbe, Litvakcs, those of R. Shteinman etc.) and since you readily accept the possibility of disputes between authorities, what stops an individual from choosing which Da’as Torah to follow, and doesn’t the ability to make that choice defeat the entire philosophy since it is no longer Da’as Torah being followed, but rather an individual doing as he pleases under the cover of chosen rabbinic legitimacy? And before you make response based on intellectual honesty, assume the individual chooses to follow a particular Gadol in a particular instance to his (the individual’s) detriment.
3. Given your ready acceptance of both the legitimacy of disputes in the area of Divine will, and you’re postulating that such disputes are in fact a fulfillment of Divine will, are you prepared to extend the same ideological largesse to non-Orthodoxies? Perhaps Conservative Judaism is a fulfillment of Divine will for Conservative Jews. After all, it was the Haskalah and Zionism, not any change in ideology, that led to the current unity between chassidim and mitnagdim under the umbrella of Orthodoxy. Certainly the GR”A never enviviosned such detante.
I’ll cut to the chase. Da’as Torah, as currently formulated and applied, is entirely circular. The Da’as Torah of a particualr rabbi is accepted becuase he is a Gadol and thinks the way G-d wants people to think. He thinks the way G-d wants people to think because he is a Gadol and therefore what he says is Da’as Torah. To be a Gadol one must think the way G-d wants one to think. To think the way G-d wants one to think, one must be a Gadol. Never minding the obvious quandry of which comes first the status or the epiphany, the entire notion is circular and therefore just so much sophistic nonsense.