[Avodah] [Areivim] second day of yom tov

[Zev Sero]

On 6/10/2011 4:28 PM, Lisa Liel wrote:
>> "Hachaziku minhag avoseichem biydeichem" is the what, not the why.  The
>> letter told the Bavlim to keep doing what they had already been doing,
>> but the reason it gave was that perhaps due to future persecution they
>> would make a mistake in the cheshbon.
>
> Here's my problem with this.  There are a number of ways in which Yom Tov Sheni is treated, l'halakha, as Safek Yom Tov.  But if we're doing it as minhag avoteinu, and we *haven't* made a mistake due to persecution, then it isn't a safek at all, is it?

That's right, it isn't really a safek at all.  But we treat it that way
because the Sanhedrin told us to keep doing what we were doing before,
not to invent new practices, and the way we were doing it before was
to treat it as a safek because there was one.  But RH was not always a
safek; the gemara describes in detail how it was possible (though unusual)
for both days to be vadai yomtov, even in the time of the BHMK.  So we
always treated RH as at least potentially having both days be yomtov, and
the Sanhedrin told us to keep doing so.


> My second problem is the idea of "minha avoteinu b'yadeinu" trumping
> bracha l'lo tzorech and the like.

Once again, we do *not* keep YTSh because it is minhag avoteinu.  We
keep it because the Sanhedrin told us "hachaziku minhag avoteichem
biydeichem".  So your question doesn't start.  The same chachamim who
told us to treat chicken as fleishig told us to continue our old
practices regarding YT.  Whatever it was we did when there was a real
safek, we should keep doing that.




-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin