Daat Torah (PDF)
Daat Torah Rabbi Alfred Cohen Daat Torah is a concept of supreme importance whose specific parameters remain elusive. Loosely explained, it refers to an ideology which teaches that the advice given by great Torah scholars must be followed by Jews committed to Torah observance, inasmuch as these opinions are imbued with Torah insights.1 Although the term Daat Torah is frequently invoked to buttress a given opinion or position, it is difficult to find agreement on what is actually included in the phrase. And although quite a few articles have been written about it, both pro and con, many appear to be remarkably lacking in objectivity and lax in their approach to the truth. Often they are based on secondary source and feature inflamma- tory language or an unflatttering tone; they are polemics rather than scholarship, with faulty conclusions arising from failure to check into what really was said or written by the great sages of earlier generations.2 1. Among those who have tackled the topic, see Lawrence Kaplan ("Daas Torah: A Modern Conception of Rabbinic Authority", pp. 1-60), in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, published by Jason Aronson, Inc., as part of the Orthodox Forum series which also cites numerous other sources in its footnotes; Rabbi Berel Wein, writing in the Jewish Observer, October 1994; Rabbi Avi Shafran, writing in the Jewish Observer, Dec. 1986, p.12; Jewish Observer, December 1977; Techumin VIII and XI. 2. As an example of the opinion that there either is no such thing now as Daat Torah which Jews committed to Torah are obliged to heed or, even if there is, that it has a very limited authority, see the long essay by Lawrence Kaplan in Rabbinic Authority and Personal Autonomy, cited in the previous footnote.
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