[Avodah] To Whom Should One Pray At A Tzaddik's Kever?

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 02:44:14PM +0000, Professor L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
: The following is from the column Halachic Corner With Rav Hershel
: Schachter that appeared on page 23 of the 8/10/18 issue of the Jewish
: Press
: 
: We consider kiverei tzaddikim holy locations, so we pray to Hakadosh
: Baruch - not to the tzaddikim -that in the zechus of these tzaddikim He
: should be kind to us.

RHS's position is typical of the Gra's mesorah.

Not sure why anyone who doesn't follow that mesorah would find this pesaq
particularly compelling.

And that includes Ashkenazim who will be saying "Machnisei Rachamim"
motza"sh in a couple of weeks,
or for that matter, anyone who says the "Borchuni leShalom" verse of
Lekha Dodi.

The Gra didn't say either for the very same reasons -- one can't ask a
berakhah of a mal'akh. And in fact, asking a mal'akh is *more* problematic
than asking the neshamah of a tzadiq. After all, when the same tzadiq
was alive, asking him for a berakhah wouldn't have been an issue.

It would be interesting to learn what RHS himself does with these piyutim.

(My own minhag is not to say either.)

But if you say Borchuni leShalom, how can you question someone else
holding it's okay to go to a qever and asking the niftar to be a meilitz
yosher?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is our choices...that show what we truly are,
micha at aishdas.org        far more than our abilities.
http://www.aishdas.org                           - J. K. Rowling
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