rabbi, when the poskim argue, what is a person supposed to do?
for almost any question there are three shitos with good reasons on each side. a beginner looks at a machlokes and sees chaos; the rishonim and acharonim clearly did not see it that way.
1. when there are many legitimate opinions on one thing, is there a standard one? is that what the shulchan aruch, the local rav, or the rov is for?
2. who chooses? the posek, the community, or the person asking? and does the answer change by the type of question: issur vs minhag vs hashkafa?
3. is psak contextual? can the same person get different answers to the same question in different circumstances, without anyone being wrong?
4. and the sharp one: may a person choose the shita that helps them get closer to Hashem? not the easiest shita, the one that actually lifts them. if a leniency deadens someone and a stringency wakes them up, is choosing the stringent one still legitimate psak, or does that turn halacha into self help?
bottom line, basically: is a machlokes a bug that psak fixes by picking one winner, or is the range of opinions itself the system working as designed?
Thank you Rabbi, thank you very much.
The starting point is לא בשמים היא, Torah is not in Heaven.
Once the Torah was given, Hashem gave the responsibility for deciding Halachah to qualified talmidei chachamim. The famous Gemara in Bava Metzia 59b makes that point dramatically. Rabbi Eliezer had every miraculous sign on his side, even a bat kol, and Rabbi Yehoshua responded: לא בשמים היא. The Torah had already been given at Sinai, and halachic decisions now had to be made through the human halachic process.
That means machlokes is not a defect in the system. It is part of the system.
Two serious talmidei chachamim can learn the same Gemara, the same Rishonim and the same Acharonim, understand the issue differently, and both opinions can be legitimate Torah. That is the idea of אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים. But practical life still requires a decision, so the posek has to decide which opinion to follow. Eruvin 13b itself says both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel were divrei Elokim chayim, while Halachah was nevertheless established like Beit Hillel.
So who chooses?
Ideally, the posek.
His job is to know the sugya, understand the competing shittot, weigh the Rishonim and Acharonim, understand the facts of the particular case, and then decide what he believes the Halachah should be.
In the old system, as we discussed, that was generally the rav of your community. His psak became the practical Halachah of that community. Today there is no longer necessarily one geographic rav with that kind of exclusivity. So practically, the Halachah for you will usually follow the qualified rav whom you have chosen to follow.
That is why I keep saying: find a good rav.
Not simply somebody with a title, and not necessarily the most famous person available. Find somebody who actually knows how to learn Halachah, who understands the Gemara and Poskim, and whose methodology you trust.
The Gemara itself recognizes that different chachamim can reach opposite conclusions. Avodah Zarah 7a discusses precisely the case of one sage prohibiting and another permitting, and gives rules for how to proceed. It also warns against taking a case that one rav already prohibited and simply shopping it to another rav in order to obtain a heter.
That is very different from saying that a person is forbidden ever to hear another opinion. Tosafot explains that if you tell the second rav honestly that another rav already prohibited it, the discussion can continue. The problem is hiding the first answer and shopping around until somebody tells you what you wanted to hear.
There is also no reason to assume that psak must be identical in every circumstance.
Of course it can be contextual.
Maybe the basic Halachah follows one opinion, but there is a sha’at hadechak. Maybe there is illness. Maybe there is financial loss. Maybe there is a mitzvah need. Maybe the facts are slightly different. Maybe a particular person’s circumstances make one concern much more significant than another.
A competent posek may therefore give two people different answers to questions that sound identical in one sentence, because once you know the details they are not identical questions at all.
He may even give the same person a different answer five years later because the circumstances have changed.
That does not mean Halachah is arbitrary. It means Halachah is being applied to reality rather than to a theoretical sentence.
The last question is more subtle: can someone choose the opinion that helps him become closer to Hashem?
There is certainly room for that, but I would distinguish between psak and personal avodah.
Suppose Halachah permits something, but you know that personally avoiding it helps you spiritually. Fine. You may choose a legitimate chumra. We have discussed that many times. A person may make a personal geder or follow a stricter legitimate shita because it helps him.
But that does not necessarily mean the stringent opinion has now become “the Halachah.”
It may simply mean that the Halachah permits both paths and you have chosen the one that is better for your own avodat Hashem.
And the reverse is also true. If following an unnecessary stringency is making someone miserable, damaging his family, or pushing him away from Torah, that itself is something the posek should know. A legitimate lenient shita may be the correct practical ruling for that person.
So I would not reduce psak to self-help. You do not begin with, “What answer will make me feel spiritual?” and then search for a source to justify it.
You begin with the Torah.
The posek determines what positions are legitimate and what the Halachah allows. Within that legitimate range, personal spiritual considerations may certainly matter.
That is really the beauty of the system.
Machlokes does not mean nobody knows anything. It means Torah is large enough that qualified people can sometimes understand it in more than one legitimate way. Psak does not erase all the other opinions. It tells you which road you are taking.
So the bottom line is this:
When the Poskim disagree, you do not need to solve every machlokes yourself. Find a qualified rav. His job is to learn the opinions, weigh them, understand you and your circumstances, and make a decision.
לא בשמים היא means that Hashem gave that responsibility to human beings.
The range of legitimate opinions is not the system failing.
It is the system working.