[Avodah] Traditions Should not be Altered

[Richard Wolpoe]

On Nov 6, 2007 8:29 PM, Moshe Y. Gluck <mgluck at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Another example: All the new-fangled Segulos (forty days Perek
> Shirah/Kneading Challah/Shir Hashirim/etc.).
> Another example: All the Hanhagos (both active and passive) based on Sefer
> HaZohar, that (I presume) were not practiced until the Zohar spread. Would
> R' MF, had he lived at that time, Paskened against them?
> Another example: What about the safes that many Aron Kodesh's now have in
> them? They detract from the aesthetic and add enormously to the cost.
> Mei'olam Lo Shamanu Mei'hem!
> I'm sure that the listmembers can come up with more examples.
>
>
> KT,
> MYG


Another way of saying
"Yesterday's shinui is today's time-honored Tradition!

I if something is normative ONLY because it is OLD, then the system
breaks down because its anitquity does not prove anything except its
antiquity!

I don't mean to be flip.  A time-honored Tradition in my school of
thought has to do with standing the test of time and passing a form of
"peer rfeview". if however people accept things w/o any proper
analysis, then being OLD doesn't prove it has any intrinsic value at
all.

Milsa delo ramyah anafshei, lav adato d'inish. If - as a chashuver
colleague of mine is wont to say - "The Olem is a Golem" then you
cannot prove anything by a practices popularity or its antiquity.

The proper model for supporting an old minhag -aisi - is to presume
that it is based upon a leigitmate p'sak but the original source or
its Ta'am has been lost and all we have is the practice.  [This lose
is often due to forced migrations, persecutions or just plain faulty
oral/mimetic transmission of details - such as the Shach/Sema story
where the in the original story the Shach himself was not included.]
This phenomenon of lost origins is one of the main classes of "minhag"
in Menachem Elon's work on Mishpat Ivri.   As Rabbeinu Tam puts it [as
quoted by Dr. Israel T Shma] The source of our [viz. Ashknezic]
liturgy stems from the same Oral Traditions originating in Israel as
did the Bavli.


Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
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