[Avodah] Normative Law?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 04:22:59PM -0400, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Sometimes it seems to me that there may have been original reasons for a
> practice but that practice then becomes something more like normative law
> detached from the reasons. An example might be turning around for lcha
> dodi. Originally the practice may  have been to face the west or to face
> the doors etc. but in many communities, it  just became to turn around.

It's minhag, not law, despite the wording in your subject line. The
role of mimeticism is more central than for halakhah.

Still, I think in this particular case, the masses are simply wrong.
There is no meaning to facing the back of the shul, rather than the
west, particularly if this is done regardless of whether the doors are
in the back. (And even if they happen to be in the back in your shul,
that's incidental; the norm is to turn around either way.)

There is a reason to face west. One might say that facing the entrance
has a similar symbolism. But to face the back regardless? Until we give
it meaning, can it be minhag?

I think a hanhagah needs some kind of significance to become a minhag. To
pick one of my usual examples: Milchigs on Shavuos apparenlyt started
out being a way to enjoy the Yom Tov with milk and cheese from the
new spring grass (rather than the drab dairy from hay you had all
winder). Veharaayah, the Notzrim in the same region where the minhag
began had their dairy festival usually in the same week. (Unless Pesach
was in the 2nd month of Spring, then Easter and Pesach are a month apart,
and so too the subsequent holidays.) It was only once we came up with
connecitons to the Yom Tov, whether two force 2 meals, or to remember
the lack of kosher meat at Har Sinai, that just a logical practice became
"Minhag".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Integrity is choosing to practice our values
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   rather than simply professing them.
Author: Widen Your Tent                  - Brene Brown
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF