[Avodah] Minhag Avos and Minhag haMaqom

[David E Cohen]

R' Micha's basic thesis very much echoes my own thoughts.  Let's summarize
"the rule" as follows: The gradual convergence on a uniform minhag hamakom
over the course of a few generations is inevitable, legitimate, and even
desirable, but it must be a natural process, which should not be implemented
deliberately, and certainly cannot be done overnight by proclamation.

However, this sometimes leaves me conflicted.  According to this approach,
as long as the uniform minhag hamakom has not yet naturally evolved, one
should keep minhag avos.  However, if everybody were to abide by this rule,
then the eventual convergence, which I consider desirable, would never
happen.  The convergence will only happen thanks to those who are willing to
make a deliberate, clean break with minhag avos even before the majority
practice has reached the level of acceptance that would classify it as a
minhag hamakom, something that I do not deem it appropriate to do myself.
This is hard to justify according to the categorical imperative of Kant (and
of Hillel, for that matter).

I particularly feel this conflict in borderline cases.  Where there is
clearly a minhag hamakom (EVERYBODY in Erets Yisra'el says "sim shalom" at
Shabbos minchah, to use one relatively trivial example), I have adopted it
over minhag avos without hesitation.  Where a majority of my community acts
one way (davening "nusach Sefarad," for example), but there's still a quite
sizable majority that acts differently (nuach Ashkenaz), it wouldn't occur
to me to drop minhag Avos (nusach Ashkenaz) just because 51% of the
community does something else.  A simple majority does not make a minhag
hamakom.  But it's hard to know exactly where the threshold is.  What if 65%
of the community does something else?  75%?  85%?  In cases where it's hard
to judge whether the convergence on a uniform minhag hamakom could be said
to have happened yet, one can end up feeling that whichever choice he makes,
he is betraying one end of "the rule."

R' Micha, any thoughts?

--D.C.