In a 2010 lecture on R. Avraham Shapiro for Torah in Motion, professor Marc B. Shapiro says: From a journal published in Sivan, 2009. Here’s something I disagree with. I think it is a negative approach. It’s a recording of a lecture by R. Zvi Yehuda Kook. Somebody asked him, what about asking a halachic (Jewish law) question of a haredi rabbi (such as the Steipler). Can you ask a haredi rav a question of kashrut? Tzvi Yehuda bangs on the table and says, Haredi ideology means a lack of faith, a lack of appreciation of the era we’re in and it means a lack of wisdom and you look out for them.
“Tzvi Yehuda is saying that when it comes to ideology, we obviously can’t be led by the haredim but in even purely halachic matters, you can’t ask them any questions. Their halachic decisions will be based on faulty logic. They’re not intellectually honest.”
“It was the haredim who started this shtick. It’s ahistorical. In a traditional Jewish community, say in Europe, when you had a halachic question, you asked the rav of your community. If you had a different hashkafa (worldview) from him, that was irrelevant.
“The hasidim acted that way also. In almost every city the hasidim lived, the rebbe was not in charge. There was a rav. If they had a halachic question, they went to the rav. They didn’t regard the rav as their spiritual leader. The rav was a technician and could answer these questions.
“The haredim in Israel after WWII, they started this. If you don’t share their outlook, then you are invalid in all areas.”
“This was started by Samson Raphael Hirsch. He declared that for ideological reasons, a rabbi is declared invalid. That took place in Frankfurt. Because the rav disagreed with Hirsch’s separatism, his decisions are invalid.”
