Strengthening authority with the legend of the death of the Shagas Aryeh

Jewish Review of Books hat tip to Hirhurim

The great 18^th-century scholar Rabbi Aryeh Leib Ginsburg was not a shy critic. He excoriated implausible talmudic arguments, even, or perhaps especially, when they were made by earlier authorities. He once compared a halakhic proof of the 12^th-century commentator Jacob ben Meir (widely known as Rabeinu Tam) to a "basketful of melons." Of the Beit Shmuel, a commentary on the Shulchan Arukh from the 17^th century, he wrote that the author, Shmuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, was "a student who had not reached the level of one who has the ability to determine halakhic rulings." Borrowing from the creation story in Genesis, he accused the even more famous commentator Rabbi Yoel Sirkis (author of the Bach) of "building his proofs on a foundation that was formless and void (tohu va-vohu)." Of the Magen Avraham (Rabbi Abraham Abele Gombiner) Ginsburg wrote that he simply "did not know what he was talking about." Certain passages penned by the authors of the Shakh and the Taz, two other leading commentaries on the Shulchan Arukh,  were "nonsensical and incomprehensible." As for his contemporaries, most "ruined good paper and ink and embarrassed the Torah."

Like many rabbinic scholars, including those above, Ginsburg came to be known by the title of his book, Sha'agat Aryeh. In this case it is particularly apt, since it is a phrase (taken from the Book of Job) meaning "the roar of the lion." Ginsburg's harshness eventually killed him, or at least so the story goes. Or at least one version of the story.  [...]