[Avodah] Avodah Digest, Vol 26, Issue 87

[Prof. Levine]

At 08:40 AM 5/17/2009, Zev Sero wrote:

>Yitzchok Levine wrote:
>
> > From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews)
> > cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit
> > (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi.
>
>The Bartenura's letter doesn't seem to make it out as a minority
>custom, or as a goyishe one.   Could the Arabs not have learned it
>from the Jews, perhaps in the 70 years or so between the Bartinura's
>day and the Radbaz's?
>
>
> > However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbade Jews to go there.
>
>There is a teshuva of the Radbaz to a father who had vowed to take his
>son to Shmuel Hanavi for a haircut, and was now unable to do so.  IIRC
>the Radbaz doesn't say anything negative about the custom, but merely
>deals with what to do about the neder.
>

I sent Rabbi Mandel Zev Sero's message above. Below is his response

There is nothing here that addresses the issues:

1) there is evidence from before the reconstitution of the Jewish 
community in the 1500's that the Arabs practiced these customs.
2) if the Arabs had borrowed an existing Jewish custom, why would the 
Jews call it by an Arabic name?
3) how come the custom was specifically labeled as one practiced by 
the Musta'rabim and not other Jews?
3) most importantly, talmidim of R Berl Mezricher who emigrated to EY 
expressed their astonishment that such  "holy custom" was totally 
unknown in Europe, even to m'kubbalim and chassidic masters.  If this 
was originally a Jewish custom, where pray tell, had it been hiding? 
Not by Ashk'nazim, not by S'faradim, not by Teimanim, none of whom 
knew anything about it until they got to EY.

Why is the fact that the RaDVaZ does not condemn it a kashya?  Were 
the Musta'rabim not part of the Jewish community that he headed, even 
if they had adopted Arabic customs?  And the RaDVaZ would not 
necessarily have known that only known source for the customs, which 
were practiced by a significant part of the Jews in his day, was only 
in customs of other religions.



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