[Avodah] minhag shtus

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

We have already discussed customs that seem to be against halacha like not
eating in the succah on shemini atzeret (outside EY) and cohanim keeping
their hands under the tallit during birkhat cohanim.

There are other customs which though not minhag shtus seem a little
counter-intuitive.
One famous one is the custom (again outside EY) not to have
birkhat cohanim every day. The reasons given by the Ramah sound contrived
to explain an existing custom.

Another strange halacha (again outside EY) is to start ten
u-matar le-brachah on December 5th.
The gemara says that (at least in Bavel) the rain season begins 60 days
after the tekufah (equinox). 60 days after September 22 is about November
22. The difference between November 22 and December 5th has to do with the
shitah of Shmuel that the solar year is 365 1/4 days and the equivalent
Julian calendar where both are wrong. Si in essence December 5th is based
on a wrong calculation. Thus the rainy season is Bavel should start
November 22 and that is the appropriate time to start requesting rain (the
halacha in other countries is already a disagreement among rishonim). So
why don't we change a wrong minhag> The answer seems to be that we continue
old customs even when the basis is known to be incorrect.
see
http://www.vbm-torah.org/en/mystery-december-4th
for more details about December 4th-5th

-- 
Eli Turkel
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