[Avodah] minhagei 9 av

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 01:50:49PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Beans?!  Where do beans come from?  The minhag is to throw "berelach"
> (I don't know the English name); perhaps someone misread this as
> "beblach"!

Which is weird, because the whole point is the name. It's a reference
to Eikhah 3:10, "Dov oreiv hu li..." Dov = ber, thus throwing berelach
(which could be taken as "little bears") as a reminder of an enemy
bursting from ambush?

That said, I personally feel the minhag is too fun for kids to be in the
spirit of the day, and minhagim in which chldren annoy adults aren't a
great idea altogether (such as tying tallisos together on Simchas Torah).

As for the translation: it's a seed not that different than an acorn or
filbert, no?

>> and who make  siyumim daily [including  9 av to my knowledge]
>
> This is a modern minhag L, introduced by the LR in the late '70s
> or early '80s.  On 9 Av the siyum is on Moed Katan, which is one of
> the gemaras one may learn on that day. 

In Camp Munk, they made sure to have one night without a siyum. R' Yechiel
Aryeh ("Michael") Munk z"l (the camp's founder and father of the R's Munk
who ran the camp in my day, author of ArtScroll's seifer on the Alef-Beis,
student of Slabodka, PhD from U of Wurzberg, fought anti-shechitah laws,
founder of Cong Henden Adass, principal of BY of Boro Park, DP camp
volunteer, etc, etc, etc...) justified the frequent use of siyumim to
offer fleishig dinners. After all, he said, what can better heal the
damage of sin'as chinam than people joining together to celebrate another
Jew's completion of a seifer?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous