[Avodah] is mayim acharonim a chumra?

[Shlomo Pick]

Someone wrote a while back on the Areivim list (vol 26, no 195):

 

"What about those who wash mayim Achronim before bentching? I do not. 

Are those who do wash observing a Chumrah? If so, then there are Chumras

everywhere, and the term seems to me to have become meaningless in the way

that you insist upon using it."

 

In a later issue, Rebbezin Boublil correctly responded in the next issue 

that this is a din in the shulchan aruch. I think this point should be

elaborated upon: 

 

In OH, 181:1 the mechaber states emphatically that mayim achronim is an

obligation.

MB offers 2 reasons: dirty hands (yadayim zohamot) and sodomite salt.

Chaza"l even pegged it to a verse in these parshot of vayikra, that one

should be holy, this is mayim acharonim. At the end of this chapter, in

no.10 the mechaber says that there are some who do not practice (she'ein

nohagim) to wash mayim achronim, with the tosophot in berachot brought as

the source. Interestingly, the remah says nothing in either place, seemingly

agreeing to the mechaber's view. MB (no 22) quotes the vilna gaon who opts

that it's an obligation as does magen avraham in the name of kabbalists, as

well as R. Shlomo Luria, author of Yam shel Shlomo. All this implies that

MB's view is that it's an obligation as he quotes no one concurring with

this lenient practice.

 

Even the great meikal of Lithuanian Jewry, the aruch hashulchan, (181:5)

states that the tosophot who argued that the custom in his day was not to

wash mayim acharonim, did so only to melamed zechus on those who did not,

but would admit that nowadays one is obligated for there may be sodomite

salt among us and thus concludes that one should be scrupulous in this

practice, i.e. one should follow the din of the Talmud and use mayim

acharonim. He also states that thus (i.e. washing mayim acharonim) is the

practice of all yirei hashem (those who fear God)

 

Thus the law as formulated in SA and concurred to by the latest poskim

acharonim is that one should was mayim acharonim. It's not a chumra, but

din. If one doesn't than one is meikal, i.e., relying on a lenient ruling of

the tosophot, where even ashkenazic authorities questioned it, e.g. Rosh,

who disagreed.  Even the great standard bearer for ashkenazic custom, the

ramah is silent here.  So under those circumstances, one should reconsider

the issue of mayim acharonim, and ask why am I lenient?

 

And should some yekke say that he eats with a knife and fork and therefore

his hands are clean, I refer to kaf hachayyim, 181: 27 who cited this very

argument from r. Yaakov emden in mor ukeziah,  and immediately cites sources

that rebut it, and concludes that under all circumstances one should wash

mayim acharonim.

 

I should also note that the noted Dayan of Frankfort, the author of the

Yosef Ometz, in paragraph 155 states that according to the Kabbalah one

should wash mayim acharonim nowadays.

 

Finally the great forerunner of all minhag ashkenaz, the maharil, also

obligated mayim acharonim, see spitzer ed., p. 117, no. 41, and especially

note heh.

 

Accordingly, one may conclude that someone who does not wash mayim acharonim

has a source to rely upon, but would not be included among the yirei hashem

according to say the Aruch haShulkhan!

 

Yom Atzmaut Sameiach

 

Shlomo Pick

 

 

 

 

 

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