הוצאת לעז על הראשונים

We have spent a long time and much written space objecting to various approaches with regards to the reason why those who tried reinstating daily ברכת כהנים were met with Heavenly opposition. We discussed and analyzed various possibilities, including that they were punished for changing a מנהג, for leaving a trace of an evildoer's memory, as well as why it is that we have a right to ponder these questions to begin with.

We also proposed a solution as to why these Heavenly signs were regarded to begin with.

Now that all of the aforementioned has been moved out of the way, we can finally get to the solution that seems to fit all the pieces best, namely (drumroll please): that they were מוציא לעז על הראשונים, meaning, that the implication of reinstating daily ברכת כהנים is that all the wise and righteous people of the previous generations were willfully neglectful of an absolute חיוב גמור. Such an accusation is a terrible one indeed, such that, apparently, it is better to continue willfully neglecting a חיוב גמור ourselves rather than to accuse our forebears of such an iniquity.

This approach was told to me first by my uncle (who wishes to otherwise remain anonymous), author of שנות חיים (a systematic presentation of תורת בריסק on מועדים), and later by R Yitzchak Breitowitz.

With this we can also explain why the תלמידי הגרא, who instituted daily ברכת כהנים in their יישוב in ארץ ישראל, were not shown any signs from Heaven to stop, namely because the ראשונים there indeed did perform ברכת כהנים daily (even meriting commendation to that effect from the בית יוסף [1]).

We can also explain why daily ברכת כהנים was successfully instituted in Dubai [2], namely because the entire community didn't exist more than perhaps a decade ago, such that there are really no ראשונים there in the first place to be מוציא לעז on.

We can also understand why similarly frightening stories occurred to those who wanted to be buried (see here section 2) with kosher ציצית, namely that by doing so they were implying that their forebears were willfully neglectful of the obligation to indeed do so.

The same can be said of the (anonymous) individual who skipped a פיוט due to a concern of הפסק and didn't live out the year: by so doing he implied that his predecessors willfully ignored the halachic concern of הפסק [3].

The one story that remains to be explained is that of the מהריל [4] whose daughter died because he inserted an extra פיוט into the liturgy to honor its author who was buried in that city, against the express wishes of the גבאים: there is no absolute חיוב to honor the author of a פיוט who happens to be buried in that city. However, although, objectively speaking, there may be no such חיוב, even so, the מהריל seems to have felt there was, enough to do so even against the express instructions of the community officials!

In a future post we will אי"ה explain why indeed it is that הוצאת לעז על הראשונים is so severe as to warrant even neglect of (what would otherwise be) absolute חיובים.

Appendix

Although there may be ways to separately answer each of these individual questions, still, there is a יסוד said over in ישיבות (which, to a certain degree, is actually common sense) from ר חיים בריסקער, which I will first write in the original Yiddish as I have heard it said over, and then translate and explain:

אן אמת'ע פשט איז וואו איין תרץ ענפערט דריי קשיות.

A true explanation is one where one answer resolves three questions. To that end, although there may be other ways to answer each of these questions independently of each other, nonetheless, I have still chosen the above approach as the one which is most נראה לענ"ד because it answers the largest amount of questions at a time all in one shot.

[1] או"ח סוף סימן קכח

[2] originally accessed here on June 18 2023

[3] https://otzarminhagim.blogspot.com/2023/06/blog-post_18.html note 6. It is possible that the individual referred is actually the מהריל, only that some of the details were confused. This is pure speculation, however, and there is no direct evidence מכריח such an interpretation.

[4] https://otzarminhagim.blogspot.com/2023/08/instances-throughout-halachic-history.html note 1