[Avodah] Minhag Shtus

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 04:37:20PM -0500, Prof. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: I distinctly remember when R. Avigdor Miller learned the gemara that
: says that one does not make a bracha on the succah on Shemini
: Atzeres,  but one should eat in the succah on ST. A fellow who was
: at the shiur raised his hand and said,  "What about the minhag to
: not eat in the succah on ST?"  R Miller responded categorically,
: "There is no such minhag!"...

Well, I think we would agree that a minhag that contradicts halakhah is
a minhag shetus, and not a real minhag.

Which I would guess was RAM's point.

If the process of creating minhag is as I described, I am wondering about
practices that caught on among the people but could not be justified
by the rabbinate. Not rejected, that's the case just discussed. But
no deep meaning could be found either. Would that be a minhag shetus,
or do we need active rejection?

What if a meaning could be invented, something one can learn from the
minhag, but it's an invention the rabbi himself came up with?

For example, if Purim costumes really do imitate Carnivale. Or if
milchig on Shavuos really did start because that's when the milk is
at its best after a long winter of milk from dry hay fed cows and much
of Europe had milk festivals in this season? And so the reasons we all
repeat were indeed such post-facto inventions. If those histories were
found to be more than theories, would that make these minhagim "shtus"
and to be dropped?


But returning to the case of Sukkah on Shemini Atzeres, the Minchas Elazar
offers a counter-argument by explaining the gemara as being rhetorical.

The gemara (Sukkah 47a):
    Vehilkhita: meisav yasvinan, berukhei lo mevarekhinan.

Pashut peshat, and the majority minhag: Sitting, we sit, [but] a
berakhah we do not bless.

But the ME supports the Chassidish practice by noting that if this were
indeed peshat, the gmore naturally say "yasvinan velo mevorkhinan". There
is an implied tone here, and the ME says it's bitmihah: Is it possible
that it comes to sitting we sit, even though when iu comes to the
berakhah we cannot make the berakhah?"

The problem I have with this read is that "berukhei nami mevarkhinan"
vs "berukhei lo mevorkhinan", withut being tied to a phrase about
sitting, appears earlier in this sugya.

R' Tzadoq has a LONG defense <http://hebrewbooks.org/14379>. Among his
more interesting points is a proof that many rishonim must have had this
line in their editions of the gemara!

(Perhaps related: It is academic consensus that the "hilkhita" closings
we find on many sugyos are among the latest additions to the text.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
micha at aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
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