[Avodah] chumrah of Sefardim

[Daniel Israel]

On Tue, 08 May 2007 16:58:08 +0000 Chana Luntz 
<chana at kolsassoon.org.uk> wrote:
>I think there are two aspects to ROY's psak:
>A) that if a sephardi is making hamotzei he can only do so on 
>water chala;
>B) he cannot be yotzei with an Ashkenazi who is making hamotzei on 
>sweet chala.
>
>Even if you hold A) and I think a lot of Sephardim do, that does 
not
>necessarily mean that you hold B).  If you hold, as my husband 
>(and his Rav) does that if one is invited out the correct 
procedure is 
>to be yotzei on the kiddush/hamotzei of the baal habayis on the 
rov am 
>hadras melech principle (which he is quite machpid on) and if one 
takes 
>the view that if it is OK for him, one can rely on his standards, 
then 
>even if one holds A) one is not required to bring one's own 
challos 
>
> [Similar case with Kiddush snipped]
>
> (BTW if you don't hold a mutar for him, OK for me approach,
>then Ashkenazim can have problems eating at a Sephardi home on 
>shabbas, if the food has been warmed up by doing chazara which is 
>permitted for Sephardim and forbidden according to most 
Ashkenazim, but 
>I don't know anybody who won't permit that). 

I'm not convinced the two cases are comparable.  In the first case 
you are using his action to fulfill your mitzvah, in the latter the 
chazara is incidental to your eating.  Also, in the chazara case I 
think the issue would be an issur d'rabbanan anyway, so it would be 
mutar for you to eat it (but not for him to eat it) if you were to 
hold everyone to the Ashkenazi psak.  So the only nafka mina in 
whether you have to view his action according to his posek or yours 
would be, perhaps, lifnei iver.

I don't quite understand how being yotze on someone else's ma'aseh 
works, but according to your understanding above, what would you 
say to the case of someone making havdalah on something that he 
holds is chamar medina, but your Rav told you clearly that it is 
not?  Does the answer change if your Rav told you that those who 
hold that it is are plain wrong?  (Again, I'm not trying to 
disprove your position, just to learn the sugya a little better.)

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu