[Avodah] Minhag Yisrael

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Wed, 2011-06-22 at 13:36 -0400, Prof. Levine wrote:
> At 01:12 PM 6/22/2011, R. Ben Waxman wrote:
>>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.

So I'll point out here that "minhag Yisrael" seems to be a very misused
term, or at least a very misunderstood term. Usually Sepharadim get the
cognative dissonance of someone saying a particular Askhenazi minhag is
"minhag yisrael" even though Sepharadim don't follow that minhag at all.

I seem to recall pointing this out back when we discussed how it was
"minhag Yisrael" to change melodies in Lecha Dodi at "lo tevoshi,"
despite the fact that many Sephardic minhagim (I singled out Jersualem
in particular) have traditional melodies for Lecha Dodi and do not
change at "lo tevoshi."

This time, you get the cognitive dissonance, as your original Ashkenazi
minhag has been ignored in the drive to call something "minhag Yisrael".

~Chanoch