Pinchas, Bamidbar 28:15. Se’ir izim echad le’chatas lashem. Flexibility in Psak and Eilu Ve'eilu

Rashi from Chulin 60– Hashem asks that we bring a korbon to be mechaper for Him for His having diminished the Moon during the Ma’aseh Breishis.

Reb Moshe in Kol Rom III and other places: this is a mussar haskeil that when deciding between two sides, a decision for one does not necessarily mean that the other is without merit and truth. There are times when a decision has to be made, and the decision accepts the primacy of one side over the other, but this does not invalidate the truth of the other. Dayanim have to remember this when presiding over a case involving a dispute either in civil law or halachah.

In the Teshuvos, EH IV 34, Reb Moshe he talks about hysterectomies. Of course, male castration is an issur de’oraysa, under the rule of Be’artzechem Lo Sa’asu. The question is what the halacha is in the case of hysterectomy. The Gaon, based on his understanding of a Sifri, holds that this, too, is an issur lahv de’orayso. The Gaon is a daas yochid. But in other teshuvos, he Reb Moshe writes that he paskens like the Gaon, and assers hysterectomies. But then in this teshuva, Reb Moshe brings that the Shach in YD 242, in Hanhagos Horo’oh, brings a Bach that even in an issur de’orayso, you can be someich on a daas yochid against a rabbim in cases of tzaar godol or hefsed meruboh. The Shach disagrees with the Bach, and holds that’s only true in cases of an issur de’rabbonon. However, the Taz holds like the Bach even in issurim de’orayso. Therefore, Reb Moshe is mattir hysterectomies in cases of Tza’ar Gadol where there is no alternative. (Obviously, one would need shimush talmidei chachamim to know what constitutes tza’ar gadol.)

I find this to be amazing. What does psak halochoh mean? Everyone that has given shiurim to not yeshivishe baalei batim knows that as soon as you tell them that there is a machlokes about something, you have someone saying "He holds like this, and he holds like that, you can do 'vat ever you want.' This, of course, is wrong. There is such a thing as a psak halacha: the poseik decides what the halacha is, and the majority of poskim decide what the halacha is, and precedent decides what the halacha is. But if you can be mattir when there is hefsed meruboh, what does it mean when you pasken issur under normal circumstances? How does tza’ar or hefsed affect the decision? If you’re paskening it’s assur, then it’s assur, isn’t it? Apparently not, according to the Bach and Taz. If there’s a daas yochid to be meikil, the fact that you generally pasken like the rabbim, or you generally pasken le’chumroh by de'oraysas, is a din in how to pasken when you have two shittos that are both emes on some level. But where there’s a hefsed meruboh or tzaar godol, then you can be someich on the daas yochid, because that is also true. Here's an example. The shittah of the Tosfos Rid in Kiddushin 14, and brought in the Avnei Milu'im, is that if a woman tells her husband "Put my Get over there on the fire hydrant that's twenty feet away from me," and he puts it there, she is divorced. Nobody except the Tosfos Rid holds like that. So, what if some guy says, I know nobody paskens like the Tosfos Rid; but I don’t care, I’m going to be meikil like the Tosfos Rid and be mattir a woman on the basis of tein get ahl gabei sela. Is she divorced or not? Would her next husband be oveir on an issur de’orayso? The children would be mamzeirim, of course, because that is a decision that we make, not him. But as for the issur questio, maybe he would not be oveir an issur de'oraysa. It seems that he was just oveir on the procedural rules of psak halacha. Or, it could be that there comes a point when a da'as yachid is totally delegitimized, like "Beis Shamai be'makom Beis Hillel eino mishnah."

Maybe the pshat is that the din of psak is to preserve the Torah. In other words, psak is not necessarily a guarantee of truth: when you seek a psak, or you study a question and pasken, your true obligation, your true quest, is to sincerely seek the answer to your question in the Torah, to develop a coherent approach that is based on a valid understanding of the Torah. What you come out with doesn’t really matter. The main thing is to seek to live your life ahl pi dinei Torah.

In fact, in the case of par he’elam dovor shel tzibbur, the Gemara in Horyos says that Beis Din brings the korban only when the psak was shown to be false, not where the balance of votes moved from heter to issur on a question of logic or precedent. If, however, there are individual dayanim on the court who maintain the previous psak, it would seem that, again, it is a procedural determination, not a finding of truth.