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Today, there are so many sites online (chabad, aish, ask moses, halachipedia, CR, mi yodeya) where you can learn halacha l’ma’aseh in easy English and ask people questions about specific cases. Is this good? On one hand, its harbatzas Torah and probably leads to correct halachic observance, especially at a site like ask moses, with real rabbis. Even halachipedia has numerous quotations from halachic mekoros in their psakim. Negatives are the lack of ‘ask lecha rav’ and depersonalization of the shu”t process, and occasionally very incorrect answers online. Do the pros outweigh the cons?
I remember someone from AskMoses telling an NCSYer I was working with that, “Shomer Negia is a nice Chumra but not an actual Halacha”. I am very, very wary as to their Ne’emanus.
I believe every Halachipedia article is approved by Rav Schachter or Rav Willig before being published.
The CR is an awful place for Halacha. No one who states Halachic opinions here has any idea what they’re talking about.
No one who states Halachic opinions here has any idea what they’re talking about.
A bit harsh, no?
An anonymous forum is indeed not included in “eid echad”, so nothing is halachically reliable, but there are two or three posters who seem to have a bit of a clue.
You need to know who is behind a given site, just as you need to know who is the person you are asking a shailoh to. The internet is the medium, not the message.
CR is very for debating some Torah topics but lousy for halacha. Mi Yodea is very good for halacha because well-documented and well-reasoned answers get voted up and they have at least one very well-qualified talmid chacham who I know personally who answers there regularly. Of course Mi Yodea is lousy for debate because of the format of the site.
I learn all my halacha from the internet. Then I ask my husband what to do. Works every time.
Is your husband in Kollel?
Sam2: I laughed at your example of “shomer negiah”. However, I would have liked to hear the context of the question and, more to the point, how did the person write his teshuvo. Was it to a baal teshuvo and was he trying to minimize any other infraction? Was he quoting “derech chibah’ or not? anyway, context is important in teshuvos.
Internet halacha is ok for some basics (how do we wash for netilas yadaim, what is the correct bracha to make on applesauce?etc.), but each real shailah requires a person actually describing to his/her rov what the inyan is. There may be mitigating factors that alter the decision. The same shailah might be asked of a rov by two different people, who will give two different piskei halacha on that shailah. And both piskei halacha are correct, because the individual situations might seem identical, but might not be.
It’s also good for just getting the sources for you to lookup. If I were not 100% confident after using online resources, then you ask your LOR.
Drey kup: Why does it matter?
Sam2 is correct in that too many think shomer negiah is a chumra.
Is it permissible for a person to pasken for himself situations that arise or must one ask a shaila from a Rov (or posek)?
For someone who has no contact with offline community, this is the only source of knowledge.
even if piskei halacha given online ARE correct, is it still bad because there is no rav giving you a personal answer? How important is aseh lecha rav, and personal situations in getting a teshuvah?
I think that’s a great question, and very l’maaaseh, because there are one or two internet/phone hotlines which I actually think are reliable.
It is obvious that the people who run these forums or email or phone services feel it’s worthwhile on the whole, but I assume that that’s because there are situations where your posek is not available, but I agree that one must be careful not to allow them to replace the “aseh lecho rav”.
“there are one or two internet/phone hotlines which I actually think are reliable.”
Which two are they?
One of them is not the CR, so there’s no point in posting that information here.
I asked for tachlis, not stam in der velt arein. Sharing that could be helpful to myself (and others.)
That’s why I didn’t answer you. You should be asking your rov about which hotlines/websites are reliable, you shouldn’t be asking some anonymous person on the internet.
2yo thread
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Bump please. I just found the Hamakor site. Wondering if it’s reliable… says it was created by Mordechai Torczyner
Btw… I can see a number of posters here contributing to Halachipedia
LB: How would you know that any posters here contribute to halachipedia?
Joseph, I understood LB to mean that she thinks they should.
How does halachipedia work? Can anyone contribute?
You’re both right.
Though for LU, it’s not my place to say “should” so I would say “could.”
I heard a shiur from someone who runs one of those sites and he said the questions he gets online are different than the ones he gets in person
It seems there are certain questions people will only ask anonymously online and never ask in person, He gave the types of questions people will only ask anonymously however I forgot exactly what kinds they were, but they were just as important as the ones they would ask off line
ZD- that makes a ton of sense. There are certain questions I would never ask in person. I have looked at the questions of Rav Leff’s site, and there are many questions there that I am sure the askers would not have dared to ask in person.
I was very happy because there were things there that are important for me to know and I never would have thought of asking.
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