[Avodah] Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise!

[Prof. Levine]

At 01:12 PM 6/22/2011, R. Ben Waxman wrote:
>From: "Chanoch (Ken) Bloom" <kbloom at gmail.com>
>> In this case, Halachah Berurah 125:2 (R' David Yosef) says specifically
>> "The minhag yisrael is like the opinion of the Ari Z"L, that the whole
>> tzibbur says the whole nusach of kedushah word for word together with
>> the shalicah tzibur, from the words 'nakishach v'na'aritzach' until the
>> end of the whole kedushah."

>Unless you follow minhag taiman, in which case you do like the Mehaber
>(baesed on the Rambam?)

I do not say the entire nusach of the kedushah. I follow the original
Nusach Ashkenaz minhag. Please see
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/Ashkenaz/kedusah.pdf

Nusach HaGRA also does not follow the ARI. There is a shul not far from
where my oldest son lives that follows the original Ashkenaz minhag.


At 01:12 PM 6/22/2011, R. Zev Sero wrote:
>On 21/06/2011 1:17 PM, Prof. Levine wrote:
>> Be this as it may, I have wondered more than once how the ARI could
>> come along and change so many things and have these changes accepted
>> by many communities. It is all the more surprising to me given that he
>> lived for only 38 years according to many sources.

>It's because he didn't make anything up himself; everything he taught
>came from his rebbe, Eliyohu Hanovi.  He revealed secrets that had not
>been known before him, so it's logical that people changed their
>minhogim to bring them into line with these new revelations, just as
>the medical discoveries of the past 200 years have caused everyone to
>change their lifestyles.

Given my highly rationalistic approach to things, I really do not know
how to respond to this.

Many was the time that I told R. A. Miller this or that "unusual"
story. He dismissed all of them with a wave of his hand, saying,
"We are not mechuyuv to believe these stories. I once told him a story
that R. Chaim Volozhin told about the GRA. Again he dismissed it with a
wave of hand and, "We are not mechuyuv to believe these stories." I then
asked R. Miller, "Why do you take this approach to all of these stories?"
He gave me what I consider to be a very wise reply. He said, "Our minds
are strained enough by what we are required to believe. It is not wise
to add to this."

If it was "logical that people changed their minhogim to bring them
into line with these revelations," then why didn't this happen in
Germany? There most of the old Ashkenazic minhagim were preserved
scrupulously. (For the record, Kabbolas Shabbos was not introduced into
Frankfurt until about 1700 and at that time there was much opposition
to it. To this day KAJ in NY says Kabbolas Shabbos differently than most
other places.)

YL