Taking Precedent Seriously 17

ated following the redaction of the Talmud are binding only upon the communities which adopted them; the beit din of one commu­nity cannot coerce the court of another community to follow its interpretation or enactment. Nor can the court of one generation expect that a successor will follow its rulings.“If one of the geonim should interpret the law one way while another court concludes that such is not the correct interpretation of the Talmud , we need not follow the first ruling but rather whichever ruling is more per­suasive(lemi shehada at notah).” Two points deserve particular mention here. First, it is the Talmud , and not the decisions of any post-Talmudic authority, which determines the law, so that the halakhic decisor may presumably overrule or ignore generations of accumulated precedent when he believes that those rulings do not comport with the best interpretation of the Talmudic sources.” And second, there is no hierarchy among post-Talmudic scholars. Rambam pointedly refers to them all as geonim—"“those geonim who hail from the land of Israel , or Babylonia , or Spain or France ”—a subtle indication of his rejection of the claim to special halakhic authority on the part of the post-Talmudic Babylonian sages were customarily designated as geonim.” No one scholar or group of scholars deserves our legal acquiescence on the basis of his or their position or prestige; we follow them when they are right—that is, when their view of the law accords with the correct interpretation of the Talmudic sources—and we dissent from them when they are wrong. This statement, a declaration of halakhic independence from the rulings of the past, should not blind us to the extent to which Rambam follows those rulings in fact. The Mishneh Torah has been called by one of its most perceptive stu­dents“a sturdy link in the great chain of Gaonic-Spanish Talmudic commentary.” Rambam ’s use of the geonim was“pervasive,” as was his reliance upon the interpretations and decisions of Rabbenu Chananel , R. Yitzchak Alfasi and R. Yosef ibn Migash.” If Maimonides is a radical in the manner in which he presents the halakhah—in concise Hebrew , arranged in logical order, legal rules presented without dispute or minority opinions—he is a conserv­ative in terms of its content: the halakhah of the Mishneh Torah is largely the halakhah of his predecessors. Precedent, therefore, is for Rambam a powerful factor in the determination of the correct legal decision. But we are dealing with“persuasive precedent” here, precedent that teaches the student yet does not constrain him from expressing dissent. If Maimonides is influenced by his teach­