[Avodah] mesorahReb Moshe responded re wearing modern

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
> R' Eli Turkel wrote:
>> RMF also was against nusach sefard (chassidic) as it was a
>> change from tradition although that happened some 300 years ago.
> 
> R' Zev Sero asked:
>> Where did he write this?
> 
> Igros Moshe O"C 2:24

So how does that show that he was against Nusach Sfard?  Permission to
switch away from it doesn't mean that he's against it.  And in this case
he wasn't even being asked for permission to change to Ashkenaz; the
asker was already davening Ashkenaz, but worried that perhaps he had an
obligation to switch back to Sfard because it was his family minhag. To
this RMF answered that this family minhag was only a few generations old,
and before that the family had davened Ashkenaz, so he shouldn't feel
obliged to switch.  He didn't forbid it, or indicate disapproval of Sfard.
(He did write that he didn't quite understand the grounds on which the
previous generations had used for switching to Sfard, but he accepted that
they did indeed have valid grounds.)

BTW, RMF couldn't possibly pasken any other way, since his own father had
switched from Sfard to Ashkenaz as a condition of his shiduch.  If for
some reason he couldn't pasken that the switch was permitted, he would
have had to decline to pasken at all.

I recall seeing elsewhere in IM that the differences between NA and NS
are so trivial that switching between them doesn't really count as a
change in nusach, and when we talk about an issur on changing it must
be talking about much more radical changes than these.  I don't recall
exactly where I saw this, though.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas