Shalom,
I was surprised by Rabbi Mordechai Rackover's comments concerning the inclusion of [
www.practicalhalacha.com] in the Announcements digest. Rabbi Rackover seems to object to this web site for four different reasons: First, he seems to object to internet halacha generally ("There is almost never a situation when one can not contact an authority"). Second, he thinks that "the centralization of pesak around ‘gedolim’ is a tenet of charediesm that is rejected by forward thinking Modern Orthodox rabbis and poskot". Third, he thinks that these types of web sites "divest power from local rabbinates and rabbis" and finally, he does not like this particular web site specifically since it does not cite sources and encourage learning: it just gives you the actual halacha.
I think that these objections are not really persuasive and I am grateful for sharing this web site although I certainly do not agree with every psak found on it.
I think that the internet serves a very valuable source of halacha, and providing people with a set of answers to questions, particularly when they come endorsed -- as these do -- by a well known moreh horah. Question and answer formats -- even when no reason are given -- are a fast way to provide data to people who want to see what are the spectrum of reasonable possible opinions, sometimes before they consult their rabbi, sometimes in order to not bother their rabbi and sometimes to allow them to consider what rabbi to consult. Second, I think that the centralization around gedolim has nothing to do with charedi or modern Orthodox, and that the Modern Orthodox community has its own venerated gedolim and that is a wonderful thing. (We should have more of them and not less.) Local rabbinic authority is rarely -- I did not say never -- as learned as a halachic expert is, just like your local medical or legal practitioner is rarely as knowledgeable as a specialist. (Consider this web site as a Jewish version of webmd.com, which certainly never takes the place of a doctor, but is a site that people do look at before they go to their doctor, or before they decide that they do not wish to go to their doctor, but will go to a specialist directly).
So, please continue to send me links to resources like this so I can read them, learn from them and factor them into my knowledge base.
MJB
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Atlanta, GA 30322
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 07:26PM by mlb.
