Gra bashing Bahag?

Question

In Biur Hagra YD 293:2 the Gra makes the following shocking statement:

ודברי בה"ג כאן טעות גדול הוא וא"צ להשיב עליהן וגם מ"ש בשם ב"ח הב"ח כשיטתו דס"ל אינו נוהג בשל עובדי כוכבים וכבר הכו על קדקדו כל האחרונים ושגגה יצאה מתחת ידו וטובה ה"ל לבה"ג כאן השתיקה

And the words of Bahag here are a great error, and there is no need to reply to them, and that which he wrote in the name of the Bach, the Bach is simply going according to his own opinion that it is not observed when it comes from a non-Jew, and all of the Acharonim have already hit him over the head, and a mistake has come out from under his hand, and it would have been better if Bahag would have been silent. (my own very loose translation)

How could the Gra attack the Bahag so harshly? Isn't the Bahag (The Baal Halachos Gedolos) a Gaon who lived close to a thousand years before the Gra. Why would he talk so sharply against such a renowned authority?

@Alex I"HN it was just meant as a silly question (riddle?) so I could answer it. That is the reason for my above comments about how bad it is... \ — רבות מחשבות, Jan 25 '18 at 05:40
@ShmuelBrin absolutely right. Lo Dakti in my haste to get to the answer. correcting now. — רבות מחשבות, Jan 25 '18 at 06:28
IMO a question that arises only because the asker deliberately omitted part of a quotation to be able to ask it violates our riddle policy. — msh210, Jan 25 '18 at 07:17
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it violates our riddle policy by intentionally omitting part of the quote in the question — mbloch, Jan 25 '18 at 07:42
@mbloch It's not a riddle since the question is a valid question on its own. Perhaps it should be brought up in meta. — ertert3terte, Jan 25 '18 at 22:08
@DoubleAA meaning that it would have been a valid question even if he wouldn't have known the answer — ertert3terte, Jan 25 '18 at 22:17
Since the problem was that not all information was provided in the question, I edited the question to include the full quote, since I think that removes the riddle problem. @ShmuelBrin — b a, Jan 25 '18 at 22:24
@DoubleAA For example, https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/1659/riddle-what-halacha-is-learned-from-something-said-by-satan doesn't make sense as its own question - who said that there's something that's learned from the Satan? — ertert3terte, Jan 25 '18 at 22:27
@DoubleAA Same with https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/3167/riddle-when-would-a-couple-be-forced-to-break-their-engagement . Who said that there's such a case? — ertert3terte, Jan 25 '18 at 22:28
@shmu lacking proof that an answer exists hasn't stopped tons of questions from getting through — Double AA, Jan 25 '18 at 22:29
@ShmuelBrin That lacking proof that an answer exists shouldn't stop a question from getting through? How is that relevant to this post? I'm confused. — Double AA, Jan 26 '18 at 00:08
The Gra knocked renowned people down all the time. It comes with little surprise to me. — ezra, Jan 26 '18 at 00:31
Every achron does it if you learned them enough... The reason why they do it? So you won't make a mistake. — Shlomy, Dec 21 '20 at 00:08

רבות מחשבות · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-20T22:09:30.897

2

Regardless of whether or not we think that the Gra would use such language against a Gaon, it is irrelevant, as the Bahag here does not refer to the Baal Halachos Gedolos, but rather to the Beer Hagolah. This is evidenced by the intermediate portion of the quote (skipped over in my question):

ודברי בה"ג כאן טעות גדול הוא וא"צ להשיב עליהן וגם מ"ש בשם ב"ח הב"ח כשיטתו דס"ל אינו נוהג בשל עובדי כוכבים וכבר הכו על קדקדו כל האחרונים ושגגה יצאה מתחת ידו וטובה ה"ל לבה"ג כאן השתיקה

Obviously the Baal Halachos Gedolos cannot quote the Bach, who lived much, much later. (I also suspect that the line וכבר הכו על קדקדו כל האחרונים ושגגה יצאה מתחת ידו may refer to the Bach, not Beer Hagolah.)

edited Dec 20 '20 at 22:09

answered Jan 25 '18 at 00:29

רבות מחשבות

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Notably, R Moshe Ravkash was the Gra's great-great-great-grandfather. – Double AA Jan 25 '18 at 01:34
@DoubleAA cool, didn't know that! – רבות מחשבות Jan 25 '18 at 01:37
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@רבותמחשבות Then you'd probably like to also know that " A document of the year 1750 informs us that [the Gra] was granted a small weekly allowance from the legacy left by his ancestor, R. Moses Rivke's (Be'er Hagolah), for the maintenance of those of his descendants who would devote themselves to the study of the Torah." (Students, Saints and Scholars p.129) – Oliver Jan 25 '18 at 04:08
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@Oliver wow, that just made this answer 50 times as meaningful. – רבות מחשבות Jan 25 '18 at 04:16

Gra bashing Bahag?

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