[Avodah] Minhagim for Baalei Teshuva

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:59:25PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: My understanding is that in all of these cases, he should try to
: determine where his ancestors are from, and try to follow the minhagim
: of that place. As stronger question might be for a person who has
: no ancestors - a ger - but my unders tanding is that the established
: practice is for a ger to take on the minhagim of the beis din that
: converted him.

Let's go back a step.

Minhag is supposed to be by location. It's only because the norm has
become that few locations have a minhag hamaqom that our ancestors'
location became determinant -- we have no local custom to switch to,
so we stick with the one we came from.

I would therefore think that someone who has to adopt minhagim needs
to pick a community to affiliate with, and follow theirs consistently.
Since the idea of minhag is to belong to something.

I am not as sure as RAM that this is usually the BD who was megayeir him.
But I do think that following one's rebbe when one is learning is natural,
although now I'm talking more sociology/psychology then what I think the
halakhah advises. E.g. WRT baalei teshuvah... I know of Yekkes and
Sepharadim who practice Chabad minhagim, daven Ari, etc... because they
or a parent were brought back by a meshulach. And not just Lub does
this... Ohr Samayach and Aish haTorah produce ahistorical Litvaks, etc...

:-)|,|ii!
-Micha

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