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The authority of the first

שו”תCategory: HalachaThe authority of the first
asked 3 years ago

Hello Rabbi. In our time, when it can be said quite broadly that they have accepted not to disagree about the Rishonim, does their status match the Talmud? I am not talking about deciding between opinions, but rather about the case where it is clear that there is disagreement about the rest of the Rishonim.


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מיכי Staff answered 3 years ago
I don’t think there is such absolute acceptance. There is certainly great weight to the words of the first, and you have to be very confident to disagree without relying on a different opinion from the first themselves. It should be remembered that the Rishonim is a collective name for many compositions (some of which, of course, have not reached us, some have been discovered over the years, and some are not even known to the general public), and therefore it is unlikely that there will be such an acceptance. The Shas is one defined composition, and it is relatively easy to understand that it is accepted as a binding canon.

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יגאל replied 3 years ago

I understand. And do you think it's possible to turn the wheel back, for that matter, if the Reform movement becomes the majority among the Jewish people, the authority of the Gemara will be abolished? How do you even measure the majority? Should a different infrastructure be proposed, or is the abolition itself enough?

מיכי Staff replied 3 years ago

Why reach out to the Reforms? Already today, the secularists are the majority. If the majority of those who observe the mitzvot and are obligated decide that the Gemara is no longer binding, then it will not be binding. Obviously. The Reforms are not observant of the mitzvot and are not obligated to the halacha and therefore do not count.
I assume that the majority here is not the product of counting, although that is also possible. There should be a sense that this is the prevailing opinion.

שמעון replied 2 years ago

Hello Rabbi, is the source of Chazal's formal authority based solely on the acceptance of the people?
So, why exactly is this mandatory? And who exactly must accept? And what is the relationship between the first and the last?

מיכי Staff replied 2 years ago

See Beit Yishai Sermons סטען טוב. In short, a person is bound by the law accepted by a collective to which he belongs. I wrote about the first and the last above.

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