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

[Richard Wolpoe]

On 9/7/07, Yitzhak Grossman <celejar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>

I am not familiar with all of the sources.

First Disclaimer:
If the Rema supports this Minhag I would say it is NOT a minhag Shtus per se

Now for mitigating arguements

   1.  given the reality of the situation on the ground TODAY, I think
   Rema himself [were he here] might be in favor of eliminating it. Proof?
   Ashkenaz got rid of kefiyyas Hamitta because of arousing suspicion amongst
   the Gentiles.
   2. If you personally have no minhag avos, then why bother getting
   invovled in a  controversy? E.G. My family long ago switched to coins
   in lieu of chickens.  I fee lthat is a valid alternative w/o any drawbacks
   to continue that.
   3. Third - aisi - there is no mitzva to flaunt it. If you want to
   perpetuate a valid minhag avos by using chickens then by all means do it w/o
   being Mehallel Sheim Shmayyim  being somewhat discreet.
   4. Kapapros is after all a Minhag and NOT a Halachah. It can be
   subject to changes if there are valid considerations to do so w/o being
   labeled a "Reformer".  Elevating it to the status of  Halachah is imho
   misleading;, tantamount to making a d'oraisso out of a derabbanan.  ideally
   categories should be respected and not homogenized.



-- 
Kesiva vaChasima Tova
Best Wishes for 5768,
RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
Please Visit:
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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