In our previous article we explained the severity of being מוציא לעז על הראשונים. In this article we will אי"ה attempt to delineate the precise boundaries of הוצאת לעז על הראשונים.
While it would follow logically that any case in which הוצאת לעז על הראשונים is not a concern we would thereby be able to perform ברכת כהנים daily, nonetheless, this platform does not claim to disseminate final פסק הלכה on its own (as opposed to quoting direct sources of final פסק הלכה). Any practical action taken based on the foregoing should be cleared by a competent halachic authority. We take no responsibility for any experimentation based on our halachic conclusions.
There was a מנהג in Worms that every ר"ח סיון the community would then fast until after midday. [1] They would then daven מנחה at the earliest possible time and subsequently eat so as to avoid fasting a full-blown fast on ר"ח. They would then daven מעריב as they normally did the entire year.
Where ר"ח סיון fell out on ע"ש, however, they would then daven מעריב immediately following מנחה and then make קידוש.
שבות יעקב [2] recounts that where he saw this happening, he was very perplexed that they would daven מעריב so early. He even criticized the מנהג loudly yet no one listened to him. He even heard that many before him protested against this מנהג to no avail, raising a concern that perhaps future generations will think that the rabbis of generations preceding them were quiet and didn't protest, indicating that they in fact agreed with this practice, and so should be established להלכה for generations.
Where I myself, writes שבות יעקב, didn't daven מעריב with them as I normally would, people complained that I am separating myself from the ציבור, and that I don't have the halachic ability to change their מנהג.
Now, in order to clarify before all that their מנהג in this regard is mistaken, שבות יעקב therefore first defends their מנהג however he can and then responds to each defense in its place.
While the actual סוגיא is indeed quite interesting, nonetheless that is not our focus here, rather what is relevant to us is what שבות יעקב writes at the end of the תשובה, namely how to avoid הוצאת לעז על הראשונים i.e. implying that his forebears were neglectful of הלכה. To that end he writes that actually the earlier generations indeed followed הלכה properly, in that they used to daven מנחה as early as possible (with reading the פרשה of תענית, and saying memorial prayers in a doleful melody), after which they would daven מעריב at the regular time. Later generations mistakenly decided to daven מעריב immediately following מנחה, which is a reasonable mistake to make because even with regard to testimony one can get mixed up between one time on the clock and the next (פסחים יא), so all the more so here.
We can derive from the above that so long as one has a reasonable explanation for how it is that the original מנהג did indeed follow הלכה and that there was simply a broken telephone somewhere along the way, then that is no longer considered הוצאת לעז על הראשונים.
With this we end our lengthy series on why it is that most אשכנזים (and even some ספרדים) don't perform ברכת כהנים daily. We hope that our research was informative and compelling. We now hope to turn our attention to other matters בעז"ה.
[1] This was in memory of 12 lay leaders of the Worms community who died על קידוש השם on ר"ח סיון during גזירת תתנו. See ר יודא לייב Kirchheim's מנהגי וורמס (in the entry for ר"ח סיון) for extensive historical and liturgical details.
[2] חלק ב או"ח שאלה ו
