[Avodah] Cancel Simchas Torah!

[Prof. Levine via Avodah]

At 12:43 PM 10/12/2015, Micha Berger wrote:
>Once Ashkenaz started becoming a major community, most of them too read
>in a 3 year cycle, as I described. And there was a qerovetz in Mussar
>every Shabbbos that refered to the week's haftarah, which was also as per
>the three year cycle. It suggests also what they were leining that week,
>from which historians of halakhah surmized that Bereishis was on Shavuos.

 From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

It is estimated that in the 11th century Ashkenazi Jews composed only 
three percent of the world's 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country>Jewish population,

Now as I understand it, the 3 year cycle had pretty much disappeared 
by this time.  The synagogue in Egypt that is reported in the 12th 
century to have leined based on the 3 year cycle was an 
exception.  Thus,  how can you assert that "Once Ashkenaz started 
becoming a major community, most of them too read n a 3 year 
cycle."  It seems that once Ashkenaz became a majority community,  no 
one was following the 3 year cycle.

Again,  the 3 year cycle was used in EY.


>Machzor Vitri (from before Rashi's passing, 1105 CE) mentions Simchas
>Torah, Chasan Torah and Chasan Bereishis. So we're talking VERY early.

See the marvelous sefer Toldos Chag Simchas Torah by A. Ya'ari for 
the history of the development of Simchas Torah.  R. Avraham Yari in 
his sefer Toldos Chag Simchas Torah comes to some interesting 
conclusions about when the Zohar was actually written.  His 
conclusions are based on when the name Simchas Torah was first used 
to designate the second day of Shemini Atzeres. See

http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/zohar_yaari.pdf

and, in particular, see what he writes on page 30.


>Prof Ta-Shma links the Ashkenazi 3 yr cycle to the EY origins of many
>of Ashkenaz's pesaqim and minhagim. But it sounds from what you're
>saying that the early Ashk version of the cycle was more rigid than
>the original. I had simply not considered the possibility, and just
>assumed they were identical.

I again I cannot understand this given that the 3 year cycle was 
abandoned before Ashkenaz became a dominate force in the Jewish nation.
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