[Avodah] Minhagim for Baalei Teshuva

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 09:01:22PM +0000, Kenneth Miller wrote:
: This SEEMS to fit what R' Micha is saying, that "Minhag is supposed
: to be by location." But is that really the ideal...

See my reply to a similar question of yours asked last Nov
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n158.shtml#02>:

    I think that's the implication from the sugyos in Maqom sheNahagu
    (Pesachim pereq 4). Minhag primarily means minhag hamaqom. One keeps
    one's minhag hamaqom until one is in a maqom that has a different
    minhag. (What it takes to be in a new place is one of the key open
    questions behind the question of whether a tourist observes YT sheini
    shel goliyos.)

Which, ironically, is the canonical source of the phrase "minhag avoseihem
beyadeihem".

    The shifting of populations has taken on a new speed, so that people
    are moving around at rates that few communities stay still long
    enough to develop minhagim. Y-m has a few minhagim particular to
    itself, but there aren't that many other such examples.

    Which has created a situation in which people hold on to their old
    minhagim for generations. Minhag avos, what was once a stopgap for
    people moving to places that have no real community, has ended up
    dominating. Not because we changed the rules of minhag, but because
    we live in a very different world.

I thought RnCL corrected some ideas in this theory but I can't find
her post now.

See also the threads in vol 23 and vol 26 at the subject lines starting
with <http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=M#MINHAG%20AVOS>.

:-)||ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 2nd day
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