[Avodah] Yom Tov Sheni for Olim LeReget to the Beit Mikdash

[Alan Rubin]

Micha Berger wrote:

>While trying to find an answer, BTW, I found that R' Tam holds that yom
>tov sheini is actually minhag (in the technical sense), not a taqanah.
>He uses this on Beitzah 4b as an example of making berakhos on minhagim.

The issue of the status of second day Yom Tov as minhag, derabannan or
even darraisa is interesting, not least because it seems that
declarations about the stringency of the 2nd day have been influenced
by battles against reformers.

For instance Saddiah Gaon  stated that 2nd day Yom Tov went back to
Moshe but this may have been an exaggerated response to Karaites who
claimed that 2nd Day Yom Tov violated ‘Lo Tosif’. Rav Hai Gaon
considered it to have been instituted by the prophets Daniel and
Ezekiel. The Chasam Sofer categorised it as derabannan and later in
his life wrote that it was close to being mideraissa because it had
been instituted by a Beis Din.

When Rabbi Eleazer Landau, the grandson of the Noda beYehudah
permitted a man who was on his deathbed to write a get, to avoid
agunah problems on 2nd day Yom Tov, the Chasam Sofer opposed his
decision on the basis that public acceptance of 2nd day Yom Tov had
transformed it into a neder which could not be abrogated. This was all
on the background a battle against reformers who were trying to
abolish the second day.

Alan Rubin