By Rabbi Josh Wander
This article is probably not what you think it is.
I’m not here to attack the Rabbanim in Chutz LaAretz. Quite the opposite. I’m genuinely curious whether they understand how their authority is being invoked—often casually, sometimes recklessly—by regular frum Jews to justify positions that seem to hollow out large chunks of the Torah itself.
Walking through Lakewood, I encountered many types of frum Jews. I made a point of challenging them, politely but directly. Why stay in Galus? Why not come home? The gates are open. History has shifted. The Jewish people finally have somewhere to go.
The answer I heard again and again was short, confident, and conversation-ending:
“I follow Daas Torah.”
Fine. Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the enormous question of what “Daas Torah” actually is. Let’s assume it’s a real concept, with real weight. Even then, something here doesn’t add up.
I simply cannot imagine that Rabbanim in America are pleased to have their names used as a halachic eraser—wiping out mitzvot written explicitly in the Torah. How can Daas Torah ever contradict the Torah itself? That would be absurd. And yet, in practice, that is exactly what is happening.
An entire third of the mitzvot—those dependent on Eretz Yisrael—are dismissed with a wave of the hand and two magic words: Daas Torah. Jews speak as if these mitzvot are theoretical, optional, or even irrelevant. Not inconvenient—irrelevant. That should trouble anyone who believes Torah is eternal.
I was told more than once that “holy Jews shouldn’t even be learning the sugya of Yishuv Eretz Yisrael.” Think about that. Not disagreeing with conclusions. Not debating applications. Avoiding the sugya altogether. Since when does Judaism encourage ignorance of Torah as a virtue?
When I pointed out that major Gedolei Hador explicitly spoke about the obligation—or at least the urgency—of Jews returning home, names like Rav Chaim Kanievsky and the Chazon Ish, the response was telling:
“They aren’t our Rabbis.”
A curious dance step emerges here. Rabbanim are authoritative—until they aren’t. Their words are binding—until inconvenient. Quoted selectively, ignored strategically.
Take Rav Moshe Feinstein. He is cited constantly when it suits the narrative: Eretz Yisrael as “only” a mitzvah kiyumis (while quietly ignoring that he paskens like the Ramban and not the Rambam), or leniencies such as Chalav Stam. But how many of those same people are meticulous about all of Rav Moshe’s chumrot? How many avoid Shabbos clocks because Rav Moshe was uneasy with them?
Halacha doesn’t work à la carte.
You don’t get to declare allegiance to a posek only when his rulings are comfortable, affordable, or culturally convenient. That isn’t mesorah. That’s consumer religion. It’s cherry-picking piskei halacha to construct a Judaism tailored to lifestyle rather than truth.
Years ago, I joked that I could have become a multimillionaire by writing a computer program: enter your halachic she’eilah, then enter the answer you want, and the software would tell you which rabbi to go to. At the time it sounded absurd. Today, it feels uncomfortably accurate.
This isn’t Daas Torah. It’s Daas Atzmi wrapped in rabbinic branding.
It’s time to call this what it is: a revisionist Judaism that selectively adopts Torah and then sanctifies its omissions by invoking authority. Real Daas Torah does not cancel mitzvot. It does not fear sugyot. It does not require intellectual blinders. And it certainly does not transform Galus into an ideal state by linguistic sleight of hand.
Torah doesn’t need to be protected from Eretz Yisrael.
It needs to be protected from being erased in its name.
