Disagreeing with the Rambam and Maran
Last week I came across a rather bold statement by Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi. The context was Rabbi Halevi’s opinion that one should alter the nachem prayer that is recited on Tisha B’av in order to reflect the reality of a rebuilt Jerusalem. See here for a previous post on this issue. After Rabbi Halevi first wrote his proposal for the liturgical change, which he testified was his own practice, there were not surprisingly many responses to it. In the second volume of Aseh Lecha Rav he included more discussion of the issue. Apparently there was a rabbi of some stature, whom he refused to name, who wrote a critique of his opinion. In a response to a third person, Rabbi Halevi wrote the following. (p. 146)
“If it is your intention to hint to me that this important rabbi already decided that one should not make the change and that it wasn’t appropriate on my part to disagree with him, I would respond to you that this is the strength of the halakhah. There never was any halakhic decision of any great scholar in Israel after the editing of the Talmud which was binding. Permission is granted to anyone who has appropriate and fitting evidence to disagree, even with their teachers. Even in the case of the Rambam and Maran [R. Joseph Karo], both members of their generation and later ones disagreed with them and in many cases we do not follow their opinion and there is much more to say on this.