[Avodah] ashkenazi minhag

[David Cohen]

R' Eli Turkel wrote:

> I would go a step further. Given that there are minhagei of EY I dont
> understand the
> heter for anyone to say but that is not there original minhag. I dont know
> the stand of
> Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz. However, there are many halachot that EY accepted
> the
> Machaber over the Ramah. Some examples include "shehechiyanu" at a Brit
> Milah and
> not wearing tefillin on chol hamoed. As far as I know there is no heter for
> an Israeli
> (not a visitor from chul) to wear tefillin on chol hamoed because that was
> his ancestors
> minhag. Minhag hamakom trumps that.
>

The question is which of the minhagim of the Perushim have taken on the
status of "minhagei Eretz Yisrael."

Here is a (by no means exhaustive) list (let's call it "LIST A") of
originally Sefaradi practices that have been accepted by all "mainstream"
Ashkenazi kehilos in EY, whether they daven nusach Ashkenaz or nusach Sefard
(chasidi):
-- no tefilin on chol hamoed
-- no "baruch Hashem le'olam" at weekday maariv
-- "barechu" at the end of davening
-- saying "morid hatal" (okay, that might actually have an intrinsic
connection to EY)
-- duchening every day (at least south of the Galil)
-- "Ein Keloheinu" every morning
-- "shecheyeyanu" at a beris

On the other hand, here is a (equally non-exhaustive) list (let's call it
"LIST B") of practices that the Perushim adopted, and are recorded in R'
Tukachinsky's luach, but in reality were adopted only by a certain
percentage of nusach Ashkenaz kehilos, and by an even smaller percentage of
nusach Sefard (chasidi) kehilos:
-- no "veshamru" at Shabbos maariv
-- no kerias haTorah on Simchas Torah night
-- Abridged Tal/Geshem before musaf, rather than inside chazaras haShatz
-- kerovos for shacharis of yom tov an 4 parashiyos after kaddish shalem,
rather than inside chazaras hashatz  (in places where they are said at all,
that is...)
-- shir shel yom according to minhag haGra
-- aseres hadibros read in taam tachton on Shabbos of Yisro and Vaeschanan

As far as I can tell, there is no inherent reason why the items in List A
were universally accepted and the items in List B were not.  It's simply a
matter of history that that is what happened, whatever the reason, so most
of those Ashkenazim in EY who prefer to keep the traditional Ashkenazi
practice are perfectly comfortable not adopting the Perushi practices in
List B, but would feel that to deviate from List A would be to violate what
has become a de facto "minhag EY."  Mechon Moreshes Ashkenaz is simply
saying that the very existence of List B proves that the Perushim did not
define "minhag EY" for all Ashkenazim, so there's no reason that all
Ashkenazim in EY need to feel bound to List A either, given that there is no
categorical difference between them.  That being said, I believe that there
are cases in which even they do not want to deviate from list A.  For
example, I think that they do all duchen every day, and that the rabbanim of
the different MMA-affiliated shuls have paskened different ways regarding
wearing tefilin in public on chol hamoed.

-- D.C.
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