[Avodah] kitniyot

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 11:59:51PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
:> Actually, you and I agree on that too. I think that minhagim should be
:> mimetically defined, by definition, and therefore it's only a very
:> overwhelming sevara that says the minhag is damaging that should change
:> a minhag.

: I am confused by the term mimetic. I understand it in the sense of
: tradition,

Mimetic is from the shoresh mime, to copy. (Like a mimeograph.)

Mimeticism is Judaism as culture. Things like absorbing that "Shabbos
is coming" feeling of the erev Shabbos Jew. The pious Jew of today may
be able to work himself up emotionally on Yom Kippur, the mimetic Jew
of 100 years ago was simply terrified, without such work. (Both kinds
of religiosity have their pros and cons.)

Mimeticism evolves because culture evolves.

Textualism is also tradition. But it's the formal tradition passed off
from rebbe to talmid. RYBS's dialog down the ages that he watched gather
around his father's table, or later, in his own shiur room.

So the mimetic-textualist axis is not quite the same as the
tradition-ideology one.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
micha at aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef