[Avodah] Why do Yekkes wait 3 hours?

[Jonathan Baker]

>  1. Tosafos/ BeHeG require NO waiting between meat and milk - except to
>  end 1 meal and to being another - totally subjective timing.
>  2. Rema codifies 1 hour. - though he RECOMMENDS [nachon] to wait 6.
>  3. Meharshal/Shach/Chochmas Adam,and others take anything less than 6
>  hours as some kind of major deviation against Halachah despite the fact that
>  yekkes were waiting 3 during that very same era ...

RMP:
> > I wonder if 3 is actually a chumra of 1-hr immigrants who immigrated to a
> > 6-hr territory and justified 3 rather than 6 on the smaller gaps between

More from RRW: 
>  1. The Hagahos Shaa'rei Dura - iirc - suggeststhat 1 hours is a mere
>  humra over the position of Tosafos.
>  2. Gra objects to this line of reasoning and cites the Zohar on
>  Mishpatim as requiring 1-hour bidirectionally.
 
> Question:  What is the source/origin  for 3 hours?
> Answers:
 
>  1. Rav Schwb ZTL held it was a humra based upon 1 hour.
>  2. Some say it is 6 hours using the very shortest Sha'os Z;maniyos
>  3. Some say it is averaging the zero [or perhaps 1] hour option with
>  the 6 hour option and getting 3 [or 3.5 rounded to 3].

I've also heard "one hour is the normal length of a meal, three hours
is the length of the longest imaginable meal, six hours is the normal
time between meals."
 
> Question: how did we get 6 any? [W/O going back to the Gmara]

However it is, we have codifications of 
  0 + Kinuach/hadacha (Tosfos)
  1 + benching (Rema)
  6 (many)

and no written codification of 3 (until very late?  anywhere?)
 
>    3. Rif taking the Gmara a bit more literally waits between meals.  He
>    then used the Talmudic model where the morning meal [app.11:00AM until
>    noon] and the evening meal [app.6:00 pm] as the boundaries based upon
>    societal standards. The Rif therefore suggests but does NOT codify 6 hours.
>    AFAIK It is the Rambam who is the first to use that magic number.
 
> Ashkenazim tend to view things in a more sociological prism than others as
 
> Now you COULD stick to the Rif's model based upon Talmudic timing OR apply
> the Rif CONCEPTUALLY to the idea of one SOCIETY-timed meal to the next.
> [Tosafos had already taken the poistion of one PERSONAL SUBJECTIVE meal to
> the next.] Therfore, since society was only waiting 3 hours between meals
> the Rif implictly would require [approx.] a 3 hour wait after meat in a 3
> meal-a-day society.

Sounds as reasonable as any.
 
> Bottom line:  I see the Ashkenazic 3 hours as an application of the Rif's
> principles to a different society.
 
> [Caveat to my friend Jon Baker:  No, I  do not have any historical evidence
> to support this. It is merely educated speculation. Michael Poppers
> hypothesis about immigration may have been the historically correct
> phenomenon.]

I wouldn't have been so bothered in the other case if there weren't
early midrash (sifra emor 17:11), gemara (Sukk 11b), zohar etc. to
the contrary.  A paper trail of mesorah as it were.

Here, AFAIK, it's all speculation, much based on sociological reasons, even
as to the reasons behind the codified positions.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com