You shall come... to the judge who will be in those days. (Devarim 17:9)
Even if he is not like the other judges who were before him, you must listen to him. You have only the judge who is in your days. (Rashi)
The Torah was given to the Chachamim of each generation. When we go to the judge “who will be in those days,” it is because the Torah is in his hands.
This concept is illustrated by the famous story about Rabban Gamliel, head of the Sanhedrin, who determined that Yom Kippur would fall on a certain day that year. But according to the calculation of R. Yehoshua, Yom Kippur would fall on a different day. Rabban Gamliel ordered R. Yehoshua to come to him, carrying his staff and bag, on the day R. Yehoshua held to be Yom Kippur, thus causing R. Yehoshua to do melachah forbidden on Yom Kippur. R. Yehoshua obeyed him.
If Rabban Gamliel says it is not Yom Kippur today, it is not Yom Kippur today.1
This shows the power of the Chachamim of the generation.
There is a story that took place in city of Vilna in the time of the Vilna Gaon. A question arose in the home of the Vilna Gaon’s neighbor, a tailor, about whether the chicken slaughtered for them on Erev Shabbos was considered a treifah or not. The tailor sent one of his children to ask the Vilna Gaon (who did not serve as the rav of the city, despite his great stature) and the Gaon ruled that it was indeed a treifah. The tailor’s wife didn’t know her husband had already sent a child to the Gaon, so she sent a different child to ask the rav of Vilna, R. Shmuel ben Avigdor, who ruled the chicken was kosher and may be eaten.
After both children came back with their reports, the tailor was thoroughly confused. He went again to the rav of the city and told him that the Vilna Gaon said the chicken is treif. The rav then went to the Vilna Gaon, and said to him, “You are indeed ten times greater than me in Torah erudition, but if your ruling will be followed, it will undermine my status as the rav of the city. Let us pay a visit to the home of the tailor this Shabbos night, and eat from the chicken in question. Because the Torah does not depend on the genius of the Vilna Gaon, but rather on what the city’s posek rules. And I am the rav, not you.”
The Vilna Gaon agreed. They both came that night to the home of the tailor and sat down to taste the chicken soup. Just then, the chandelier cord broke, and the candles fell, splashing some hot candle wax into the chicken soup. Back in those days, candle wax was made of tallow, derived from the fat of non-kosher animals. Now no one could eat the soup, as it was clearly rendered treif by the tallow.
The rav’s role is not an easy one. He needs a pure heart, clear of all ulterior motives and personal agendas. People have a lot of motives for what they say and do. They have negi’os. But if the rav is a man of honesty and integrity, if he is seeking only the truth, and he learns Torah to the best of his ability, his Torah rulings will always be Toras emes. Whatever is the conclusion he comes to, it cannot be considered a “mistake.”
