authority
Rabbi, in a lesson on conceptual analysis, you say that “only the Gemara has authority, not the Ge’onim, neither the first nor the last.”
1) How did they know this? Maybe they also have authority like the Gemara does?
2) Does this mean that it is permissible to disagree about a genius or a first?? After all, I have always heard (perhaps not rightly, which is why I ask) that each generation is forbidden to disagree about the generation that preceded it, and therefore the first is forbidden to disagree about a genius, and therefore we are forbidden to disagree about the last or the first?
3) And if you say that it is indeed permissible, it is written in the Gemara that if Rishonim are like humans, then we are like donkeys. Can a donkey argue with a human? Simply not.
4) Actually, why is it forbidden for a generation to disagree with a generation that preceded it? You already said that the descent of generations simply means that it is not in wisdom and that it is not within the scope of knowledge. So it should have been permissible to disagree, why not?
- Whoever says that he has authority is under the obligation of proof. As long as it has not been proven that he has, then he does not. As a matter of fact, this is what the Rosh Sanhedrin writes at length in 14:66, and his words were quoted in Shulchan
- True, there is no reason to disagree with anyone you wish after the Gemara. It is true that this is a great authority, and one should consider it carefully and examine carefully whether you do indeed disagree with his words. But this is a substantive and not a formal authority (I made this distinction in my trilogy, and I suggest you read it because your questions here on the site are all answered in it).
- One should not take parables too far. And did not the latter disagree with the former? Beyond that, the permission to disagree is not based on the fact that we are greater than them or that we are right and they are not. The foundation is the duty of autonomy in ruling, that every person must act as he himself rules (if he is the most righteous). See my article here on autonomy and authority in halakhic ruling.
- I didn’t understand the question. I said it’s okay to disagree. But you’re not quoting me correctly. The decline is not in the scope of information or in analytical wisdom (analytical wisdom), but there may be a decline in synthetic wisdom. I expanded on this in my book Two Carts.
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