[Avodah] Kapporos, rationalism and the titles of the Simanim in the Shulhan Aruch

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:47:07 -0700 Yitzchok Levine wrote:

> <http://www.forward.com/articles/11506/>"Orthodox Call on Sinners To 
> Give Chickens a Fairer Shake - Forward.com"

> Yitzchok Levine 

>From the Forward article:

> The kapparot ceremony is one of the more colorful elements of the High Holy Days but one of the most historically fraught. Maimonides and later Joseph Caro, author of the authoritative code of Jewish law, both claimed that kapparot had its roots in pagan ritual and should be abandoned by religious Jews.

This is apparently carelessness or ignorance on the Forward's part; as
far as I know, the Rambam never mentions the custom of Kapporos at
all.  Perhaps the writer confused Nahmanides with Maimonides; the
Poskim do indeed cite Ramban as objecting to
the custom.

I anticipate the indignant protests of contemporary rationalists: "But
of course the Rambam unequivocally rejected all such superstitious
practices rooted in folk religion!"  First, even if we concede that the
Rambam would have probably discouraged the practice had he actually
heard of it and written anything about it, it is nevertheless
irresponsibly inaccurate to baldly assert that he "claimed that
kapparot had its roots in pagan ritual and should be abandoned by
religious Jews".

Morever, I do not consider it at all certain that the Rambam would have
necessarily opposed the practice, which after all appears in the Geonic
literature [1].  The Meiri, an enthusiastic albeit moderate rationalist
and Maimonidean, although he does cite the practice's opponents,
is nevertheless willing to interpret the custom in an impeccably
rationalistic manner [2].

Incidentally, a friend once told me that Dr. S. Z. Leiman disparaged
the Friedman Shulhan Aruch for omitting from the title of OH 605 the
words "minhag shtus hu", which were apparently present in all the
earlier editions of the SA but omitted from the later ones.  I finally
checked for myself; they do indeed omit the words from their main text,
but they mention the history in a note.  They also cite a responsum of
the Shemesh Zedakkah [3] who cites the Maharash Abuhab as claiming a
tradition that those words were written by the editors, not by R. Yosef
Karo himself.  It isn't completely clear whether he means that none of
the Siman titles were written by RYK, or that this one specifically was
embellished by a zealous anti-kapporos partisan.  The Friedman editors
also cite a further discussion of these issues in the Bris Ya'akov
(Sofer) [4].

[0] see Beis Yosef OH 605
[1] ibid.
[2] see Hibbur Ha'Teshuvah Meishiv Nefesh Ma'mar II Perek 8
[3] OH #23 
[4] #41 note 4.  The author is a grandson of the Kaf Ha'haim.

Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat



Yitzhak
--
Bein Din Ledin - bdl.freehostia.com
An advanced discussion of Hoshen Mishpat