[Avodah] Birchat Cohanim

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 02:34:16PM EDT, I replied to RJR:
>> Interesting new book: The Priceless Treasure of Bircas Kohanim by Naftali
>> Weinberger. ...
>>     he recounts the efforts of the GRA and R Chaim Volozhin to reinstitute
>> daily duchening in ashkenaz and the seeming divine intervention (jail and
>> fire in the bet medrash) that were taken as a sign to stop them...

> One could have taken this far broader:

> The Gra's and RCV's motive was fundamentally based on the relative weights
> the Gra gives sevara and accepted practice / mimeticism / minhag Yisrael.
...
> The apparent Siyata diShmaya ... may have
> been an attempt to push Litvaks away from this attitude toward text-theory
> vs practice.

> But then, lo bashamyim hee.

Well, I hit another example in the AhS. YD 351 rauses the subject
of whether a meis should have tzitzis on. In se'if 3, RYME says the
"minhag hapashut bekhol tefutzos Yisrael" is that the meis is carries
with tzitzis, and before he is laid in the ground, they cut the tzitzis
off one of the corners.

(A minhag that had to be changed in areas where coffin burial is
mandated.)

He then reinforces complying with the minhag with two stories involving
gedolei hador:

    One ordered one of his students that they bury him with all his
    tzitzis. When it came time to dress [the gadol] in his takhrikhim,
    this talmid felt an urge in his bowels and left. Those who were
    dressing him didn't know of any opf this and they cut the tzitzis,
    as is customary. Immediately that talmid entered and started to
    shout. And the gedolim said that what happened there was a sign min
    hashamayim not to change anything.

    And the second who they laid him in his qever with all his tzitis,
    on of the tzitziyos got wrapped around a peg that was in the qever,
    and got town off of its owen. And they saw with their own senses that
    min shahamayim it was decreed like this.

    (The first was the Gra z"l, and the second was Mohara"z miHarodna,
    [R Alexander Zisking of Grodno] baal "Yesod veShoresh haAvodah",
    who also ordered that they bury him with all his tzitzis.)

Another case of the Gra choosing textualism to the exclusion of mimeticism,
there is a sign against it, and "lo baShamayim hi" is invoked to preserve the
minhag despite the Gra's objections.

And in this case, it cannot be taken as being about simchah and duchening.
Perhaps the tzad hashaveh shabahem is more than "preserve minhag Yisrael",
but my broad take definitely has more to stand on now.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   how can he appreciate the worth of another?
Author: Widen Your Tent                - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef