[Avodah] Age of "Ancient" Minhagim

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 00:09 -0500, Michael Poppers wrote:
> (Still way behind in digest reading, so please excuse me if this
> thought has already been mentioned in a recent digest.)
> In Avodah Digest V26#3, RYG noted:
> > The widespread custom of the bride and groom not seeing each other
> for the week before the wedding is apparently of quite recent origin.
> <
> An "ancient"-minhag favorite :( of mine: b'nei mitzva not wearing a
> talis [gadol] until they're ba'alei batim (i.e. married). Not only is
> it a relatively-recent phenomenon that many take for granted nowadays,
> but it's downright improper (e.g. see BH 17:4, quoted in MB 17:10, as
> well as MhSh ad loc.) in an era when most parents can afford to buy
> taleisim for their sons (and do purchase talisei qatan for those sons
> even years prior to age 13 mishum chinuch).

The source for this minhag is the Maharil, darshening the juxtaposition
of "Gedilim ta'aseh l'cha" (Devarim 22:12) with "ki yikach ish
ishah" (Devarm 22:13). If that's recent, then I'd be hard pressed to
find an Ashkenazi minhag that isn't recent. 

--Ken

-- 
Ken (Chanoch) Bloom. PhD candidate. Linguistic Cognition Laboratory.
Department of Computer Science. Illinois Institute of Technology.
http://www.iit.edu/~kbloom1/

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