[Avodah] What is a minhag?

[Ben Waxman]

Is some sort of consciousness of what one is doing, or awareness that this 
is a good stringency, needed? If someone, say
someone who is not maqpid on khalav yisrael, happens to stay at a hotel 
where
they only serve khalav yisrael (and he knows this), and this guy drinks this
milk three times is he then stuck? And if he doesn't know but is informed
after the fact? I don't want to get too bogged down in current events, but 
if someone takes a mehadrin bus three times in a row is that his minhag?


Ben
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Micha Berger" <micha at aishdas.org>
>    Someone who practiced some stringency with things that are permitted
>    by the law because of making a fence [about the law] or separation
>    [from temptation], such as making fasts during the days in which we
>    say Selichos, or not to eat meat nor drink wine from the 17th of
>    Tammuz on [until 9 Av], and the like -- even if he only practiced it
>    the first time but he had in mind to act this way forever, or if he
>    did it three times and it wasn't in his mind to act this way for
>    ever and he didn't [explicitly] make the condition that it should be
>    without a neder, and now he wants to change because he isn't healthy
>    -- he needs a removal [of the nefer]. He opens with [stating his]
>    regret, that he regrets that he acted in a manner for the purpses of
>    a nefer.
>
>    Therefore, if someone wants to practice some stringency for the sake
>    of a "fence" or separation, he should first say that he isn't
>    accepting upon himself to do it as a neder, and he should also say
>    that he doesn't have in mind to do so except this time or those
>    times when he wants, and not forever.