Tuesday, April 05, 2005

R' Hershel Shachter on halacha changing and Daas Torah

R' Shachter has a very interesting shiur on how halacha changes here. He clearly states that we need to believe in science. He also has a shiur on Daas Torah here. He starts off the shiur by saying that Hashem wants diversity of ideas, this is why there were 12 shevatim, they were supposed to provide 12 different approaches to Torah. This is the polar opposite of today's UO society where there is only 1 opinion allowed.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole shiur on Daas Torah listen to the last 3 minutes where he talks about the situation today. Basically he says that he doesn't think that R' Elyashiv and others related to the Agudah are considered to be the Gedolei Hador representing the whole nation. They are certainly big talmidei chachamim and gedolei torah but they are not "the Gedolei Hador" representing the nation and therefore there is no chiyuv on any individual to listen to them unless they are that person's rebbe. You need to listen to your Rebbe/Rav.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i've heard charedi rabbis say the same thing.

this whole daas torah thing is only taken literally by a small proportion (of mostly americans). It's generally understood to be rhetoric.

Anonymous said...

Why do both these tapes, in the middle of R'HS Shlita making important points, get cut off at the end? Are the shiurim in their entirety posted somewhere?

bluke said...

I listened to both of them yesterday and they were not cut off at all. I downloaded the files and then played them in their entirety. The length in minutes of the shiurim should be 1:35:06 and 1:22:13

Anonymous said...

there are small gaps in the tape, but they continue after a pause