Notpashut:
i’ll very briefly addresds your post, since there is very little there that is new, and I’ve addressed your theses in other posts.
1. There is a huge difference, from your perspective, between a doctor and a gadol. A doctor does not ever claim to be offering counsel because he knows what G-d wants in a certain situation. Your formulation of Da’as Torah is precisely that. Moreover, no competant doctor ever acts based on instinct. There is always a lab result, a physical examination etc. upon which s/he bases his/her medical opinion.
2. Regarding knavery, how can you be so blithe about it? Do you honestly believe that G-d assits a thief, or a kidnapper or othr criminal in discerning His will? I’m sorry, but when I know first hand about a prominent rosh yeshiva is Israel who assisted his niece in kidnapping her daughter from her father, it is impossible for me to accept that this man is worthy of such Divine grace. When I see roshei yeshiva in New York lie and obfuscate both the truth of an issue and the hunt for truth of the ultimate issue in a case simply to protect the kavod of a family member, how am I to accept that they are divinely inspired? When I see hoi poloi of the Torah world venerate these people, and I know them to be scoundrels (yes Joseph, in these two instances I actually have first hand knowledge. I’ve seen the evidence in both cases), when I sit at a din Torah and hear well resepcted local chareidi dayanim give advice to people how to make the Section u fraud acceptibile Halachikally, aside from getting sick to my stomach, I can’t help but reject the entire system that support belief that these people are on a “different channel” than the rest of us. We all put our pants on one leg at a time.
3. Since you are adamant that each situation has to have a “correct” solution, that gedolim disagree about what is the correct solution, deflates the entire notion of their authority. If the rabbis can’t get their collective act together and come to a uniform conclusion, I an outsider, not alligned with any of them, have no choice but to take a jaundice eye at the whole gestalt. To me this looks like little more than the entirety of chareidiut not wanting to take resopnsibility for their individual choices, and opt to chase their tales instead.
4. My seeking advice from rabbanim is just that, advice. I don’t consider myself bound to adhere to it. I don’t beleive I am sinning if I reject it. BTW, the same rebbe who encouraged me to marry my wife, also tried to discourage me from accepting a particular case early in my career. He felt I wasn’t up to the task and was convinced that either my client would remain a permanent agunah or worse, that I would create an intractible get meusa. I proved him wrong and won. The women get her get which was officiated by a universally accepted dayan, remarried and as far as I know, lives happily ever after. And he was proud of me for it. Advice is just that; advice. Stop trying to make something it was never meant to be.
Truehonesty might be true and honest, but he also a master at sophistry. But a careful reading of his last post reveals that rather than actual deal with the systemic problems I raised, he incorporates them into the system, thereby seemingly resolving them. In truth, his post is a reductio ad absurdum. He relegates my problems to matters of faith, which in the language os philosophy and logic is absurd, since faith cannot, but its very nature, be held up to scrutiny. But his post is significant when compared to notpashut’s. Truehonesty, like me, as opposed to notpashut entertains the fact that any situation calling for da’as Torah might have multiple correct answers and G-d’s will is fulfilled regardless of the result. But he calls the confusion created by the disparities part of the system, since no one really knows what G-d’s agenda is. To be honest I always preferred the Ravaad’s criticism of the Rambam in Hilchot Teshuva on the issue of bechira/Divine omniscience.
I suppose that the those who believe in Da’as Torah take a Kirkegaardian “leap of faith” and find contentment in having done so. But that leap is based on a mistranslation of Fear and Trembling. Soren Abaye Kirkegaard advocated not a “leap OF faith” but rather a “leap TO faith” One has to percieve the faith before taking the leap, and for all the reasons I’ve written, I just don’t see the faith.