[Avodah] What is the source for the minhag of Chasidim to have HaKafos on Shmini Atzeres night?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 11:56:28AM +1000, SBA wrote:
: To have even a hava amina that the "basis" of a minhag practised by 
: tzadikim and kedoshim and thousands of their followers over centuries 
: is "due to a mistake in  transcription" is ludicrous and mischievous.

Actually, claims like that are made all the time.

The Torah Temimah suggested that the custom of saying "migdol yeshu'os"
when bentching on Shabbos and Yom Tov is because someone mistranscribed.
That originally it was a parenthetic note saying that in Shemu'el beis
the word is "migdol". The name of the seifer was abbreviated shin beis,
and a later transcriber took "b-sh-sh'" for beShabbos.

Lema'aseh the TT was mistaken, since the Avudraham could not have known of
a Xian "Samuel II". (Did the division even exist yet?) And the Avudraham
records the two leshonos.

Another example: RYBS's "explanation" (offered as a "the best I could come
up with") for why most chassidim do not sit in the Sukkah on SA. Chassidim
were nohagim to go to their rebbe for SA-ST. Since the crowd was too
large for a sukkah, they had the din of a chasan and his shushvinin,
and were peturim from the sukkah. But the chassidim all remembered that
by the rebbe, they didn't sit in the sukkah on SA, and so, they didn't
use the sukkah on SA even when home.

Minhagim are be'etzem something the people did first which the rabbanim
and intelligensia justified after the fact.

Tir'u beTov!
-mi

-- 
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