A posek can tell you who to marry

More accurately, a Rabbi can tell you whom not to marry (i.e., Kohen who wants to marry a divorcee).

I do not believe that Rabbi Schachter said that if a Rabbi knew the parties well, his opinion that they should marry each other would be Halachically binding.

Even Yitzchak Avinu (a Navi) couldn’t impose his wishes upon Yaakov Avinu – marrying the daughter of Lavan was a suggestion, not a command.

Likewise, choice of career can be governed by Halachic considerations. Again, this is usually in the negative (Halacha can disallow certain occupations in some circumstances). I am not aware of any circumstance where Halacha would mandate an individual assume a particular career.

Whom to vote for presumably follows the pattern.

My understanding of Rabbi Schachter is that he indeed said a Posek could theoretically issue a halachicly binding ruling that Person X must marry Person Y.

The author who quoted RHS, that LB referenced in the OP, wrote:

“I saw R. Schachter and asked him about this matter. He reaffirmed his position, stating that whom one marries is a halakhic matter and therefore a posek can indeed tell you whom you must marry. He added that this is almost always theoretical since in order to make such a ruling the posek would need to know both the bride and groom for many years so as to be sure that what he is saying is correct. But he also insisted that if the posek does have the requisite knowledge he can indeed give a binding pesak about whom one must marry.”

Takahmamash is absolutely right. Without hearing it directly from Rabbi Schachter (or someone whom I trust, who tells me that he heard it directly), I refuse to believe this quote is accurate. It was either deliberately or mistakenly distorted.

Which posek’s ruling prevails if the rav of the chasson rules differently than the rav of the kallah or are we only discussing the case where both chasson and kallah agree on the same posek?

In the latter case, haven’t the two parties tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the posek? If so, what’s the chiddush?

!!!

No way I can comment on any aspect of any of Rav H Schachter’s Halachic rulings.

But–

Do you all realize?!

I think he just solved the shidduch crisis!

The Shulchan Aruch rules that beis din can physically coerce a person to marry against his will. So Rabbi Schachter isn’t making a chiddush here.

Rabbi Schachter’s speech making this statement that a Posek can order two people to marry each other is available to hear directly from him as the shiur he said it at is available as a recording on yutorah’s site.

During the same shiur, Rabbi Schachter said whom to marry, whom to vote for and what line of parnassa a person should choose are all halachic shailos within the purview of Daas Torah that a Posek is deputized to issue binding halachic rulings for a person to follow.

“During the same shiur, Rabbi Schachter said whom to marry, whom to vote for and what line of parnassa a person should choose are all halachic shailos within the purview of Daas Torah that a Posek is deputized to issue binding halachic rulings for a person to follow.”

If he did say that, it is important to realize that that doesn’t mean that a person has an obligation to ask in the first place. Also, Gedolim don’t normally issue psakim in these matters (besides voting), and would probably only do so in very specific cases.

Who to vote for… very much affects all of Am Yisrael, and you have no business making such a decision yourself.

Do you really think your vote in an election actually affects all of Klal Yisrael? (Even at the collective voting level, I’d be hesitant to say so.)

“Do you really think your vote in an election actually affects all of Klal Yisrael? (Even at the collective voting level, I’d be hesitant to say so.)”

In Eretz Yisrael, for sure! Every vote makes a difference.

I read that there were Gedolim who refused to forgive people who voted against Daas Torah in an election in EY a few years ago.

There was one election about 20 years ago in which the different parties flew people in from chu”l to vote. They obviously felt that every vote made a difference.

I tried getting a free ticket a few years ago from the political parties for an election for mayor, but I was not successful :(.

Here it makes a difference, if one district voted overwhelmingly for one candidate, they are very likely to help them in the future. Monsey will surely be rewarded for voting 90% for Trump, and I feel bad for Satmar.

I don’t quite understand the “psak” from RHS. But I tend to believe that his statement is completely theoretical.

If a Gadol gives an instruction based on Ruach Hakodesh, that would be definitive. Without entering the debate on how to interpret the Rambam regarding Ruach Hakodesh, it is my personal opinion that there are those in Klal Yisroel whose gadlus merits them moments of Ruach Hakodesh, and they can achieve a plane of spirituality that is noteworthy. There are virtually hundreds of reports of such events occurring with tzaddikim and gedolim of the Chassidishe and Litvishe velt. Having said that, I am not one of those that believes that everything that these gedolim say is necessarily coming from Ruach Hakodesh, regardless of their greatness. My respect can be unlimited, but I do not need to equate them with the Avos.

Since I cannot assume that everything is Ruach Hakodesh, I must be trusting of the judgment of the Rav. Here lies the problem. When presenting the question, have I made certain that every single relevant detail is accessible and part of the equation? I am assuming that the ability to judge all of these variable falls within the domain of the Rav’s skills. And that may also not be the case. There are simply too many limitations to emerge with a reliable psak on whom to marry. Again, a nice theory. But in practicality, I see it as impossible.

As for parnosoh, there are also many variables that are relevant to the decision of which direction to go. Unfortunately, so many of the rabbonim and roshei yeshivos that would be consulted know terribly little about the working world. They likely know even less about the skills and personality of their talmidim, as the pattern of being interested in giving such life guidance is not popular today. What hurts is the quote (I heard this in the names of R’ Chaim Brisker and R’ Yisroel Salanter – whoever said it shared an amazing insight) – the job of the mashgiach in the yeshiva is ?????? ??? ????? ??????? ?? ??????. This suggests that the main responsibility is assist those who are downtrodden and depressed – to raise their spirits. You gotta know a talmid well enough to do that. Perhaps these gedolim were addressing only their generation. So the parnosoh thing is actually more realistic than the shidduch, but has been rendered a nice theory. What a shame.

Avi K – in the case you are talking about, he was telling him NOT to marry a particular person. Throughout this discussion, I was considering the idea of a Poseik or Gadol telling someone to YES marry someone.

It seems to me that the two are very different. I can hear much more of a svara for a Poseik or Gadol to tell someone NOT to marry someone IF he feels that the potential spouse has specific deficiencies in hashkafa or halacha that will be bad for the person in question.

It is much harder for me to see how someone can tell someone else that they MUST marry someone whom they don’t want to (again I’m not coming to argue against RHS).

In the above case, it is possible that R’ Moshe deliberately refrained from issuing a psak and merely phrased it as advice.

Joseph – how does that fit in with the fact that Besuel had to ask Rivka? Or was she at the wrong age?

In any case, l’maaseh, I don’t think that anyone would say that it’s okay to do that nowadays. And maybe, once upon a time, it could be assumed that most people were Yarei Shamayim and had their daughter’s best interests at heart.

I just listened to the recorded shiur and there’s quite a lot more to the discussion than just the conclusion presented here.

Joseph described some of the qualities of a rav muvhak in post #7 above. Rav Schachter adds quite a few more and also discusses criteria in selecting one’s rav, all relevant to this topic.

Clearly, we’re not discussing a case where some “posek” walks up to someone he’s never met and “paskens” that he should marry a woman about whom the “posek” also knows nothing about. Even Rav Schachter makes clear such behavior is not sanctioned by the Torah.

At the end of the day we do believe in Daas Torah. But, we also have an obligation to be judicious in whom we anoint with that title.

blubluh – thank you for clarifying Rav Schachter’s comments and pointing out that they were kind of taken out of context.

I think it would be very problematic for anyone to walk away from this thread with the conclusion that a Rabbi can order them to marry someone whom they don’t want to marry.

btw, it’s not a joke. I had teachers who tried to force me to marry someone whom I didn’t want to marry, and they tried convincing me that halachically I was obligated to listen to them.

“Does everyone have access to a rav who is at such a level that one can totally be open with him and he will certainly provide Ruach Hakodesh?”

probably not, but then you should be aware that the Rav you are speaking to is not on that level and don’t assume that he can tell you who you should marry or that you should believe him if he does tell you.

The Talmidei Chachamim in each generation know who the Gedolim are and the Gedolim of each generation know who the other Gedolim are and who the Gedolim of the next generation are.

Even if you don’t have access to Gedolim, you should be able to find a Rav who does.

How’s that much different than the old Jewish tradition of the father of the boy making an agreement with the father of the girl to marry their kids to each other in X number of years, when the kids themselves are currently young children?

I have nothing but the greatest respect for R’ Hershel Schachter, but I’m not aware of anywhere in SH”A or any other Halachic writings that would indicate that a Rav has the ability to issue a binding psak Halacha that two particular people *must* get married. This may have been taken out of context, or this may be R’ Hershel Schachter’s personal opinion that goes against the conventionally excepted wisdom of most Poskim.

Either way, I second LU:

I think it would be very problematic for anyone to walk away from this thread with the conclusion that a Rabbi can order them to marry someone whom they don’t want to marry.

Joseph – That would only apply to a boy, and it still wouldn’t mean that they can force him to marry a particular girl (which is what we are discussing).

fine, but you’re still talking about a case where he doesn’t want to get married at all. I don’t think that’s what we have been talking about. Although I did actually mention such a case as a possible exception in an above post (http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/a-posek-can-tell-you-who-to-marry#post-642538)

And it’s pretty rare for someone to davka not want to get married. There are people who have a hard time actually doing it for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean that they davka don’t want to get married.

And if there are cases like that, I can’t imagine that a beis din nowadays would force them to get married. I also can’t imagine that there are too many girls who would agree to marry such a person. And I also can’t imagine that it would be very helpful for such a person to force him to get married. He probably either needs psychological help or has a good reason for not wanting to get married or both, and forcing him to get married would not be very helpful in most cases.

On the other hand, there are many guys who want to get married in theory, but are either having trouble committing or have ridiculous ideas of what they are looking for (often extreme age differences), but don’t seem to have serious psychological problems Some of these guys might actually have been helped by a Beis Din forcing them to marry one of the girls whom they went out with and had no good reason for not marrying. But l’maaseh, no one is doing that. If that were really doable, it would be a great way to solve the shidduch crisis. There are a lot of older guys who are too picky and meanwhile they just keep getting older and older.