Regarding the Vilna Gaon’s Prohibition of Tefilin on Hol haMoed

When confronted with the obvious fact that the Vilna Gaon upended universal Ashkenazi tradition and the supremacy of Talmudic law in order to prohibit tefillin on Hol haMoed because he held very strong kabbalistic views and sincerely believed the Zohar was tannaitic in its entirety, absolutely authoritative, and revealed absolutely true facts about the structure of the universe, people will object that this is wrong by pointing to ביאור הגר”א א’’ח לא:ב. But this is because they haven’t read it, or don’t know how to read, or suffer from ideologically-induced cognitive flaws. All you have to do is read it.

The Vilna Gaon’s arguments for prohibition:

1. He cites the Behag, but the Behag doesn’t say anything! There are two recensions of the Behag that survived the Middle Ages; in one of them, there is a statement by רב יעקב בן חביב that tefilin should not be worn on Hol haMoed. Firstly, this is both self-evidently and also demonstrably a later interpolation, and not the words of the Behag. Secondly, who is Rabi Yaakov ben Haviv? The answer is no-one has any idea whatsoever, because he appears nowhere else. (muh Mesorah). Thirdly, why is the Gaon quoting the Behag in the first place? If my Sefaria search hasn’t gravely let me down, he does this one other time in the whole of the Biur (regarding the bracha on sugar), and there as part of a long list of authorities. [Parenthetically, the Gaon writesר"ל במצה וסוכה וכ"כ בהלכות גדולות, which if you don’t check seems to imply that the Behag supports the sevara that succah and matzah are אותות, which is not so at all. I wonder how many yeshivish people are under the impression that this is the case].

2. He cites a non-extant teshuva from ‘the Gaon’, from a non-extant section of Sefer haIttim, that is quoted in the Rosh. This is strange because I am always accused of not understanding that Judaism is a living tradition, and we don’t go poking around in ‘dusty old books' for answers, but it seems that there is one condition that renders it legitimate to hunt around for forgotten opinions, namely when they are completely fake! How do we know this teshuva is fake? Easy. The next line reads וסומא פטור מן התפילין והציצית דכתיב וראיתם אותו פרט לסומא. The drasha on the words וראיתם אותו appears in the Talmud, Sifrei and elsewhere, but the drasha tells us the precise opposite, that a blind person is obligated in tzitzis! (And it says nothing at all about tefillin). Clearly, this is not a reliable source at all.

3. He cites the Zohar.

Note what he doesn’t cite: any source or argument from the Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmudim or Midrashim because there isn’t one.

How does the Gaon deal with the Talmudic proofs that tefilin are worn on Hol haMoed?

1. He admits that Rabi Meir holds to wear them, but argues this is irrelevant.

2. He admits Rabi Yehuda hold to wear them, but argues this is irrelevant.

3. He admits Rav holds to wear them, but argues this is irrelevant.

4. He admits the stam Mishnah holds to wear them, but argues this is irrelevant.

5. He admits the stam Yerushalmi holds to wear them, but argues this is irrelevant.

OK, fine, but, again, what are the actual arguments for not wearing them, except for the Zohar???? The answer is they simply don’t exist. And, remember, the opinion of the Zohar is not merely that you should not wear them, it is that wearing them makes you worthy of being killed. Now, let’s be charitable and say it doesn’t mean that really, it’s just saying it’s a grave offence with terrible metaphysical results. OK, Rabi Yehuda was a sinner, and Rabi Meir was a sinner, and Rabi Yehuda haNasi was a sinner, and Rav was sinner, and whoever you think wrote the Yerushalmi was a sinner.

Now, the truth is that ordinary yeshivish people feel enough residual identification with pre-revolution Judaism to find this uncomfortable. But the fact is that if you actually respect the Gaon as a scholar or thinker, you have to at least give him the credit of being allowed to have his own opinion, and his opinion is that push comes to shove, the Zohar trumps Hazal. It’s true that most of the time push doesn’t come to shove, and the Gaon even invested effort in trying to minimise contact between push and shove, but when there is no way out, his opinion is clear. And, in truth, if you really believe in what is claimed about the Zohar this is obviously so. How could it be otherwise? The position that the Zohar is absolute supreme truth, but somehow should submit to lesser truths is the difficult one. Sure, you can hold it, but it’s a weird thing to think.