[Avodah] Reciting l'Dovid Hashem Ori

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 04:30:10PM -0400, David Cohen wrote:
: Is it not ironic that when justifying a new chumra, past generations of
: Gedolim are by-passed to find original sources in the codes, showing that
: the chumra is the proper deredch, but in finding a somewhat disreputable
: source for a minhag, we must defer to those very same Gedolim whom we
: ignored....

There are two kinds of new chumros: arte you talking about something
perople start doing knowing it's lifnim mishuras hadin, or a new
stringent pesaq?

In the former case, there is no reason to limit oneself to halachic
process, as long as one is sure not to apply the chumrah in cases where
he is being meiqil on something else.

In the latter case, the problem is quite real. It's non-trivial to say
that generations of ancestors were doing it wrong and we know better.

What usually happens is that something is taught as lifnim mishuras hadin,
but by the time the students -- or subsequent generations -- get to it,
they forget that bit.

: It just sounds like a way to justify the results we want, rather than have a
: consistent methodology.

Or, that giving significance to the evidence of minhag, or the
legislative weight of minhag, is part of that methodology. At per RRW
and my interminable debate.

I believe that's what is happening with saying "LeDavid".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             For a mitzvah is a lamp,
micha at aishdas.org        And the Torah, its light.
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