[Avodah] tachanun/chatan

[Akiva Miller]

.
R' Joel Rich asked:

> S"A O"C 131:4 states "nahagu shelo lipol al pneichem ... bbeit
> hachatan." Does nahagu imply amcha did this and the rabbis didn’t
> resist?

Isn't that how ALL minhagim get started?

In fact, my understanding is that the main difference between minhagim and
d'rabanans is that if it starts with amcha and the rabbis don't object,
that's a proper minhag. (As opposed to many examples of minhag shtus, which
the rabbis fought against, with varying degrees of success.) In contrast,
if it starts with the rabbis and the people don't object, then it becomes a
d'rabanan. (As opposed to some examples where the people did *not* ratify
it, such as Tevilas Ezra, which are not binding upon us, although they are
certainly in the "good idea" category.)

> Even though tachanun was a rshut (maybe not now) why would one
> want not to take advantage to say it?

Great question. Apparently, they felt Tachanun to be incongruous with the
nature of the situation.

Perhaps we can compare it to saying Selichot on Rosh Hashana. Why wouldn't
we want to say Selichot on one of the main days of the Aseret Ymei Teshuva?
And the answer is because Rosh Hashana *is* a yom tov. Yet, interestingly,
we do not totally reject that suggestion, but instead we compromise by
skipping Selichot while allowing Avinu Malkenu. (And on Shabbos, we skip
even that.) Everything is very carefully measured and nuanced.

Tu B'Shvat is another example. It seems to me that at some point in
history, the general feeling was that saying Tachanun on Tu B'Shvat was
inappropriate, and so they chose to skip it. But on the other hand, for
some reason, saying Lam'natzeach on Tu B'Shvat was NOT considered
inappropriate, so they continued saying Lam'natzeach on Tu B'Shvat - - -
even though Lam'natzeach WAS inappropriate for Purim Katan. Apparently,
Purim Katan has a higher level of simcha than Tu B'Shvat, and I would not
be surprised if someone somewhere once gave an entire shiur on that.

The above is merely my own conjecture, based on the evidence at hand. I
have not seen anything written about this. But it does fit well with the
concept of Yeridas Hadoros. It seems to me that previous generations were
very sensitive to all sorts of things that go far over my head.

> Also, why the focus on bet hachatan (like bet haavel) and not
> just in his presence? Is there a higher degree of joy there?

Indeed, you seem to have answered it yourself. If we can presume that this
minyan was not merely in the chatan's home but that he was present in that
minyan, then yes, there was a noticably higher degree of joy there. And
apparently, that difference was enough to trigger the skipping of Tachanun.

Akiva Miller
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