[Avodah] Minhag Avos and Minhag haMaqom

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, March 26, 2007 12:45 pm, Rich, R Joel wrote:
: The question that always bothered me is when (and why)  did the nature
: change from primarily community based to family based? I say primarily
: because IIRC the chatam sofer and R' Moshe allowed a ben Yeshiva to
: change his minhag to that of the Yeshiva.

I would think that we're looking at an abnormal time. A few years -- compared
to the full span of the history of halakhah -- after a massive relocation of
people from multiple minhagim to new geographical groupings.

I suggested in my email that barring the melekh or Sanhedrin intervening, we
would see minhagim emerge according to our new places of settlement. Now, I'm
not as sure. One thing fundamentally changed, ease of transportation. People
don't necessarily tie themselves to one municipality generation after
generation. The increased mobility may mean that no one will ever hang around
long enough to obtain an alternative self-identification to "Litvak",
"Syrian", or "Italki".

: An ancillary question - we know the halacha of 2 batei dinim but why
: would there have been 2 batei dinim in the town in the time of the
: gemara - is it lchatchilla or bdieved?

Given priorities like berov am hadras Melekh, and the problem of agudos agudos
in one shul even where the town has two batei din (e.g. next week, wearing
tefillin in NY), I would think it's bedi'eved. That such violations of achdus
are not ideal.

That said, I think that with the diversity of people even within one locale,
it is hard to see why derekh-inspired practices ought to be uniform. A strict
notion of minhag hamaqom would mean that choosing to be a chassid would be
something done on a locale level. OTOH, this problem is not specific to minhag
hamaqom. Minhag avos means that if someone's parents are chassidim, the child
would be violating minhag if that's not what works for them and chose to
leave.

More on this thought in a moment.

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:22:47 +0200, R David E Cohen <ddcohen at gmail.com> wrote:
: 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.

Why must it be a "*deliberate* clean break"? Couldn't forgetting and learning
from your neighbors pull off such convergence?

Second, back to the idea above...

We are speaking of a contradiction between two values -- the uniformity of
minhag by location and the preservation of minhag avos. Unless there already
is a uniform minhag hamaqom, minhag avos wins, and once there is a uniform
minhag hamaqom, it wins.

I want to suggest the possibility that we need to add another value -- the
hanhagos of adherents of a derekh. But the only sources I can think to justify
the idea are historical examples. We did eventually get to the point where
even most Litvaks accept Chassidic practices as existing minhag. (Rav Moshe
allows a change in nusach from "Sfard" to Ashkenaz, but not necessarily the
reverse. But he does allow people to continue with "Sfard".) The Breuer's
kehillah isn't expected to revert back to their pre-RSRH minhagim. Talmidei
haGra similarly. When Qabbalah swept Sepharad, many qehillos changed large
chunks of their minhag. Etc...

It is not weighing two conflicting imperatives, but three. Perhaps one is
allowed to consciously change if the argument from the paneh laTorah which you
follow is sufficiently strong? I don't know, just thinking out loud.

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:21:46 +0200 R Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com> wrote:
: Numerous other poskim bring the analogy of a symphony. The best music is
: when each instrument plays its instrument well not when they are all
: identical. Hence, the optimum is each community keeping its own minhag but
: in togetherness to form a symphony.

This merely shifts my question. Should "community" be defined by heritage,
current location, the approach to avodas Hashem that best fits the person's
neti'os, or some mixture of the three? And if it's a combination, what kind of
combination?

: As RMF paskens for NY today there is no longer minhag hamakom and each
: community keeps its own minhagim....

(Assuming from your usage you mean "community of origin".)

That doesn't necessarily mean he holds that NY having multiple batei din is a
good thing. Only that given the fact that unifying under RJJ didn't work,
minhag avos must prevail.

: In spite of all this argument the litvak world does tend to insist on
: uniformity.

Well, achdus is generally seen as the preferable choice. And tefillin on ch"m
raises issues all about unity within a single mossad -- which seems very
parallel to the question of the minhag of someone who is living at yeshiva.

: While in Voloshin each bachur was encouraged to keep his family minhagim
: in yeshivot there is a force of uniformity within the yeshiva at the
: expense of family customs expecially in tefillah.

Perhaps the difference is that Volozhin didn't have everyone sleeping and
eating in the same place, and thus talmidim had more of a private life outside
the yeshiva than they do now. (Not that I'm saying the rationale *consciously*
drove the change.)

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter