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[Moshe Y. Gluck]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 04:08:22PM -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> Because I do not think that the recent changes are a plus for Yahadus.  I
> am not pleased with where I see things going vis a vis Yiddishkeit today,
> and, from other things that you have written, I do not think that you are
> either.

R' MB:
I agree to this point, but not because the change in itself is
bad. Rather, it's because of the mechanism of change. We live in an
era that has a shortage of erev Shabbos Jews, where there is too much
focus on frumkeit rather than ehrlachkeit and yesodei haTorah. And so
our new minhagim are coming from places of textualism and (in the more
aggregious cases) out-frumming the Cohens.
--------------------

I think that one of the reasons people like R' YL are uncomfortable with the
new minhagim is not so much because they are new minhagim - as I'm sure
he'll agree, and like R' MB said earlier, minhagim changed before and will
change again. But the sheer volume of change makes it seem like there's a
qualitative difference between the changes now and earlier changes. In
earlier times, because of lack of mobility and communication, it might have
taken a hundred years for a minhag to be adopted in a community, while today
new practices (whether or not they rise to the level of minhag) are adopted
in a matter of years. But the truth is that this isn't a qualitative change
but a quantitative one - just compressing the timeline. 

KT,
MYG