Minhag ("Customs"): Outline and Overview by Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning everybody um I'm sorry there aren't quite enough sore sheets yet they're just printing up some more downstairs and they'll be they'll be up in a few minutes I also apologize I'm just on the other side of a cough um so my voice is a little bit hazy I I wish I could suck and chew and talk at the same time but uh but it'll all end badly so um hopefully I have enough voice to last about 50 minutes um but isem it'll get better soon um next week and the week after I'm actually in England so I won't be here for the next two weeks there will be a substitute but uh my apologies that I won't be here then now oh we'll have the sponsorship this year is sponsored for the whole Academic Year brandit and Ben and we are very grateful for that sponsorship if I could just ask you please to turn off your phones and if you're the person who's not turning off your phone if you could also turn off your phone um that would be very helpful um last week we talked about mil and it got me all excited about minhagim so what I'd like to do is from when I come back from England in a couple of weeks time talk about some minhagim that we haven't ever spoken about before um there's lots of options but first of all I felt it would be useful for us to have an overview of really what is minhag where does it come from why is it binding what are the different types of minhag and this is actually a very complicated topic because there are so many different minhagim uh some of which are still there exter and some of which have died out and some of which are now Universal and some of which are very specific just to categorize them is a difficult thing and I'd like to try and do that in two different ways at the beginning and then maybe we'll talk a little bit more about the different types of minhag as we go through so the word minhag many of my students uh who come to Israel for the year think the word nag means stop the bus because that's what they hear people shout nag so they assume that means stop uh when I tell them it means driver then they they're very surprised and the word minhag appears only once in tanak as the word minhag and it is actually talking about somebody's driving who's driving Yu Yu is Anointed by Elisha's talm as being the re King who is going to kill off Mal Isel and there that this whole chapter deals with Yu Andel later on as well as well if you look at number one so the the lookout who is watching out for Yu coming he's looking out and he says there's someone coming and he's not turning back and the driving looks like the drive ding of Yi why because he drives like a muga the first isra driver in tanak okay and and therefore the the minhag oh thank you RAB sha RAB sha is here with a few more sheets okay it's they're in the in the process um and therefore there is this this mashal of uh what is min what is the and what is the if you think for a second about how this works I'll just wait for a second as the sheets uh sent out you can the the first little part of the Shar is not so Source based so you'll be you'll be okay if you think about it the word means to travel and what are you traveling down your traveling down the D the D hasem which God says to Abu there's a d hasem the DK of course comes from the after the of AD and originally before the there's an and after the then Hashem says we don't want the to take from the now there's what it says it turns into a and therefore there's a road that you have to travel down in order to get to your destination and there's a lot of beautiful imagery theim the K in which God the the K in which appear next on the top of the Aron Kesh which is the ETC and therefore there is now a d that we have to travel and if the is the process of traveling is the DK is the way we the road we travel on then the Minag is the way that we travel it's the form in which we travel I was thinking of um naming the she it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it uh which if anyone remembers was a a famous 1930s elephant Gerald favorite but um and that's pretty much what it is it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it the minhag is actually very specific and everyone has their own minhag as to how to go down the um there are two there are many ways to categorize I've given you two one is on the basis of who made them and we're going to see this in the Shia some minhagim and they're all called minhag and this is why it's complicated because they're all very different there are minhag which are made by kazal called minhag we'll see there are minhag which are made by later G but they're made from the top down then there are local minhagim made by communities and sometimes it's difficult to know where does the minhag start did it start from the top down or did it start from the bottom up and then there are minhagim created by families and then there are minhagim created by individuals and we're going to look at that structure a little bit more but I also brought you another categorization based on the type of minhag for example there's what's called minhagim for example on it's called minhagim we'll see whether it's minhag or we'll see that in a minute ores is AAG of the the the gor talks about the fact that Hal really is meant to be on hag and there were some communities where they were doing Hales wow what is that and the answer is that's a minhag and by the way that you will see in different communities in thei communities there are many that do not make a m on on excuse me on because it's a and the rambam says you do not make a on a Min and therefore they will make a on which is a but not on ones the ashim do make a on Minh and therefore the ashim do make a on whether you make a is nothing to do with whether it's a or that's a whole different then there are things which are called where we we refrain from doing something which is otherwise permitted in order to make a kind of fence to protect hak area classic example is kitney on PES and a big question is where did kitot come from was it from the top down did a group of rabbis get together in the Middle Ages and say we think it's a good idea to stop eating kidney OD or do people have bad experiences you know Finding bits of uh you know wheat in their rice and they said oh I'm not going to do that again so we're not going to have a whole share on that today but that's a good example not eating milk and fish together which you'll see many Sim have a minhag not to eat milk and fish together my my daughter when she did so she was in a a uh a all withi girls and and the the nickname they had for her was the Goya because she ate tun J with cotage cheese cuz why she not eat Juna with cottage cheese she's ashkanazi and the other girls are looking her in horror like Haya you know whatever it's okay it's not such a terrible name to be called in sh me I've been called worse um so so then don't e mil and F together a fish together um then there are um Minag I'm not going to talk much about these where we sometimes say there's a Minag in how different communities Pas and like broadly speaking the ashim follow Ramos Isis broadly speaking not always and the far follow Roso that's a that's what we follow there are certain communities like the yemenites tend to follow certain yemenites tend to follow the rambam that's a that's how they go then there which we're not going to talk about at all which are minhagim in business um even though technically speaking something might not be aan if this is the Minag in the business world like you know a handshake and Mas and broa and done or the the fall of the auctioneers gavel um obligations between employer and employees Etc the law follows the custom they are Min then there are which are ethnic practices a lot of our the way we pronounce the words I'd like to actually Focus AER on how we pronounce the words and whether you can change the way you pronounce the words that's actually very interesting I've had some very heated conversations with people over that over the years um life cycle events you know lots and lots and lots of minhagim community ethnic minhagim and then I put at the end two other kinds of minhagim there are things called minhag it's a it's a it's a it's an an incorrect mhak it may be made with good intentions but it doesn't make any sense and you have to stop it and I brought you an interesting example of where the tour calls something a look at number two there's going to be lots of sources on the sheet we're not reading every single one but I'd like to show you this look at number two so it says the tor now if you remember back to your days in in Mar at the end of mar there's an extra BR Etc which they say the end of so we don't say that on Shabbat even in they don't say that on Shabbat they just go from straight into Vu so look at what the Torah says the Torah is living in Spain number two on shabas you change the final okay we kind of do that sorry they have this in other places after they say on Friday night they put in this that we we in in Israel miss out anyway all the time but they put in this last in they change the opening they have a special shabas version version they say and it says it's just a mistake some well-meaning people wanted to make a shabas version of this broa but they didn't realize the whole broa is irrelevant shabas because the only reason they have that BR during the week is because it's got 18 times it says Hashem and they're conned actually 19 now conned the 19 in the we we don't say all these brasas the whole thing is just a mistake just stop it it's not a bad mistake it's just a mistake and then there are things called Min where it's not just a mistake but the whole thing is just against the it's it's it's just wrong the whole thing is ridiculous and I brought you an interesting example of which is talked about quite a lot in this which says as follows says there are people who want to say if somebody loses their firstborn son or their or their only son people said no we don't have to there's no Aus there's no avus for a why on Earth they give this reason the never really belonged to me anyway the belong to it's complete nonsense they're breaking itoh law Mitzvah which is a it's absolutely obligatory for a person to have Aus God forbid for a child even for a firstborn child and therefore there are mening which go against through looking number four the if there's an involved in your B on you have to stop the when I was growing up I don't know about you in when they do B coim so in my community in leads people used to turn around and put their backs to the coim do you do you ever come across that okay there's no reason for it in fact there's a reason not to do it when someone gives you a br you don't turn around put your back to the person you face the person and no matter how much the rabbi screamed then no the people still turn their back why because they're nervous that if they see the hand of the Kim you know you know what the the BBA are if you see if you see the hands of the Kim once you'll go blind and if you see them a second time then you'll die which actually raises the question how can you see them a second time if you go went blind after the first time but don't ask Cashers don't ask Cashers okay but the point is that you you're allowed to actually see the coim they they cover themselves with a Talis and the people also cover them it's just an incorrect they have other Minag for example in they don't on shabas which is an interesting Min now whether that's a Min or a is not so clear because it's not they may have a reason why they didn't do shabas but I'm not getting into that now but so there are lots of different kinds of minhagim and let's not forget how important minhagim are saw them minhagim is baked into the system look at a couple of fascinating midashim which again are just there to express how important minhagim are to the way we see spiritual life number five never go against the don't cause trouble don't go against the went to sh's famous mid mhe didn't eat for 40 days and 40 nights why because in sh the is not to eat when the Angels Came Down when they came to and they did eat because you don't go against the the men is not to eat in in Earth the men is yes to eat again on a on a certain level it's almost like a trivial discussion but I think what it's communicating is that we see minhagim as in sham and init we see them as a real thing I mean leave aside the fact that mhed didn't have anything to eat even if he did want to eat there was nothing to eat that's not the point here also you know in number six you have even a an even stronger version of this where do we know that there's a Mitzvah in the Torah to bury people so the G says the Persian king says to where does it say in that you have to bury people by the way I often ask this to my students and they never know the answer you know I don't know maybe here maybe this one was buried maybe that one buried so is didn't also didn't know the answer he didn't respond heard about this he said the world has been handed over to fools like who can't know the answer to that he should have said it's a Mitzvah it's explicit even with a capital criminal where you have to hang the criminal you have to take them down you hang them after they you killed them you have to take them down and bury them they deserve a burial that night you might have turned around and said like really him he deserves a burial and by the way this was way ahead of its time if you'd have gone to any European city in the Middle Ages the first thing you'd have seen hanging on the walls as you walked into the city were all the bodies of the the criminals they'd hung for the last however many months to this is what's going to happen to you if you don't play by the rules we we wouldn't do that even 3,000 years ago even a criminal calv great uncle Harry who you know was not a criminal of course he deserves a proper burial by the way the Torah often does this gives you an extreme case from which you learn AAL B not to waste um resources is learned from a case of a battle I mean you who cares I need to win the war no even in a war you have to not cut down the fruit trees calv elsewhere um the laws of what a husband has to give to his wife in marriage is learned from the in Mish when a when a a man marries the maid so he's going to say listen she's the maid she's lucky to get married to anyone not certainly to get married to me why do I have to give her anything no even the maid you have to give all the support on Etc everything you need to uh that she needs as a wife so this is another example so it's in the so the answer is excuse me the name what about they they buried people why didn't he quote from them they were just following the what about when Hashem buried mosha so it says the he was also following the Min God says look the Min of these people is to bury I'll bury Moshe I I don't need to bury mosha but I follow the Minag the idea that God follows the Minag is uh is is I think fascinating and and is really as I say baked in and I brought you a schaw which I'm not going to read um uh in detail in number seven the actually brings from last week's paraa I couldn't resist it because it was Mish on the paraa we just read with all the they all brought the same the same corbon so let's read the first two lines for all 12 each one had his own his own way of doing it we see that's why gives you every single corbon doesn't just summarize and say this one brought like that one since they were all doing it differently to fix up the world and he brings that there was a parallel in shamay and a parallel in arits meaning you need 12 tribes says the we never had a nation of One Tribe we always had a nation of 12 tribes we always had different people keeping the same but in that own in their own minhag so we don't have tribes anymore of ruven shim and lean Yehuda but we I mean we have leevan but we don't really in that sense but we have tribes now sasham Etc now we're going to have to talk about whether all our our approach to tribal Israel has changed now that we've come back to AR Israel do we still wish to retain the very sari ashkanazi flavors of the Jewish people now they we're all together or do we want to say now that's something from the galut that's something we' actually like to leave behind you know we left behind Yiddish We Leave Behind kitus as well and actually it's very interesting that in the religious Zionist World there is a very consciously different approach to this issue than in the Ked world the kedi world very very much preserves sari ashkanazi distinction in Israel different kilot different schools people don't intermar even to the verge that it's discriminatory both in both directions one to the other whereas in the religious iist well this is very consciously not the case marim all the time maybe there's a maybe there's just different whoever goes to the he just flips a little sign and he davens a different n Etc there's a very conscious shift there and we're going to have to talk a little bit about that what the different post can say about that can does everybody blend into one and if everybody Blends into one what is the one Raji yosf did not quite see how ashim is still Asim in Isel when it's AI country and he had na for example if an ashkanazi woman marries a sari man she can eat kitney of course she can eat kitney she's sardy if a sardy girl says Rad marries an Ashkenazi man so she shouldn't eat kitot with her husband but if she goes back to her parents she can still eat kitot because she's ashkanazi really if she gets married in Detroit she's ashkanazi but if she gets married in yam how can she be ashkanazi so we'll talk about we'll talk about how that works but um and therefore if you look in number eight just for a second you'll see that the the kazal spoke or rather here is rash say very very positively about minhagim all the different enactments of the and and we'll have to see what that means even to the point that Min can wipe out when when does Minag wipe out Hal Min is so important it's a Torah and it can even wipe out on the other hand on the flip side look at the top of the page number three number nine the's famous statement you've just written to me says say thatal that you shouldn't change the men because it's going to make going to create LS it's going to create you know L and horror on people because you're now doing it differently he says no listen Min Min is gum spelled backwards you think every men is good is if if fools do this clever people don't do it even a good only overrides in very specific circumstances which we're going to see soon so on the one hand you you see different attitudes to minhag Min is Torah overes and on the other hand Min and maybe different kinds of Min Min can be I once heard and I I'm sure I read but I can't find it anywhere and I've asked everybody and nobody else can find it so if anyone hears this and finds it please send me a postcard or whatever you do these days um the uh I I'm sure that I read the ravers says that Minag is like um coronus it's very very codish and you have to really look after it well but after a certain time it it's like passes it cell by date and it turns into noar noar is is meaning what what was a corbon to eat tonight by tomorrow morning you if you eat it what turn from very Kadesh to very not codish and it was either rers or someone and please tell me if you can find it who said the minhagim are a bit a little bit the similar you you they're great until they're not great and when they're not great they're really quite damaging and we'll have to see how that works okay so let's let's talk about a few different kinds of minhag first of all Minag created by kazal now don't forget the word Minag is sometimes used and I'm going to do this quite quickly because it's not really my focus as just an alternative way of saying aah look at the ramb in number 10 or in the Bas in Sanhedrin can make a Tak a gazer or a if the Jewish people accepted later based in they want to overturn the ear one so then they can't overturn it until they're greater but if you see he's just used the phrase minhag as another form of rinic law there's Tak there's Gaz and there's minhag to he says in number 11 if you don't follow the sanedrin and the sanin you're breaking a is a heavyweight Mitzvah you can't go against the mitz and you can read this yourself he says at the end Gaz this includes the kazus the takus and the Minot what he calls Minot I'm not sure if it makes a difference it's minhot not but the point here is he's saying that don't make the mistake of thinking Minag is something very light Minag can be a form of D but also don't make the mistake of thinking that applies to every minhag he's not talking about every minhag he's talking about the minim that introduced and let me give you some examples number 12 R thank you very much RAB so there is a as to whether on is or or okay okay thanks ra what what what difference does it make whether it's Yim or minim so Rashi says it's na whether it's a Tak or whether it's a Min if it's a Tak you make a br if it's a Min you don't make a br which is very interesting he says you don't make a br on something which is a do we make AA Ona no we don't we basically say it's minim so that is a Minag but it's baked into the halakic system it's not like a Minag that somebody started recently so to second day y people don't realize this second day y the rubric of second day yv quite a famous line in number 14 why do we keeps second day say and I mean people today make the mistake of asking oh I don't understand in the time of the gor they didn't know which was the right day and now we know which is the right day so why do we still keep that's just a mistake in the time of Kaz they also knew which is the right day they ask it explicitly they say now that we have a fixed calendar and we know which is the right day why on Earth would we keep keep second day y so number 14 now we have a fixed calendar we know the right day my why on Earth would we keep two days because they sent out from make sure you keep the Min of your parents of your ancestors clear and firm in your hand maybe there'll be a a decree against the Jews they won't be allowed to use the calendar anymore so second day y has a halic framework of minhag now that doesn't mean it's a minhag in the sense of oh it's my minhag to you know eat bagels and locks on Sunday mornings when I've got more time for breakfast that's not that kind of Minag it's a Minag which is aind but it's important because now you apply the laws of Minag to second day YF so if you come from a place with one Minag and you go to a place with a different Minag do you keep the old Minag or the new Minag and that's all goes to the issue to keep two days you keep one day do you intend to go back do you intend to stay and all of it all of the discussion about how many days y on you keep starts from the question as to is this a Minag or is this not a Minag not that it's a Minag it's take it or leave it it's a in the sense that's the rubric of the the second and we had a share once on that and we talked about is it is it a Minag when you're in Israel do you do what the Israelis do when you're in you do what theim do I I get a lot of questions on this by the way it's just a fascinating way that this changes the the whole reality of secondary YF is I see changing very very rapidly less and less and less people in Israel are keeping when they're here for holidays for vacations they're keeping second day y it's very interesting I see this changing in front of my very eyes um I've been involved in more on the more kind of right of sensor midra shot more and almost everybody used to keep secondary Y and now it's like a half half in many places it's very it's very interesting anyway let's leave that aside there are can't find second you can't find a well you know it's it's interesting because even if you're allowed to keep a second day on maybe you're not allowed to D an a minion the I mean that we see there are they used to be but the Misha says if you keep second answer if you should you shouldn't have like a public minion because it's a zilzil and there are all sorts of stories for that but that I'm just mentioning that that is a kind of Minag which is just another name for aind so that's one kind of minhag but there a minhagim created later look at number 17 and we'll see where they come from what is the what is if it's not the dindon of loasa where would this other Min come from so look at number 17 with me says the Riff now the Riff is living in North Africa 11th century what is that we follow why do we follow where the people take advice from their leaders from their Rabin leadership okay and they and they and they F they they are attacking something the leaders and the people together work out that they should do something they should keep something that is what I mean by even many years later we don't we're not sure where it began we're not sure how the minog started but we know if it was a Min that the people took advice and they did together with the he doesn't go away you don't just change the minhag because you forgot why you're keeping the minhag and this is an interesting question sometimes people keep minhag and they're not sure anymore why they keep those men hug him I mean kidneys actually is a bad example because everybody knows why why we keep kid the question is not why we don't eat rice it's why we do eat potatoes because they should probably also be kidney at but I'm not getting into that now but there are other things which you know I've heard along the way people do minhagim and they're not sure where they come from um somebody once told me that every time they cash a meat I mean Who cashes meat anymore but uh every time they cash a meat they always light a candle CU my grandmother lit a candle and her grandmother lit a candle beautiful like like why was this a of shabas when you cash a meat why did they light a candle no it wasn't the bulbs cuz when you cash a meat you have to leave it to soak for a certain amount of time and they worked out that they used to have candles with lines on so they knew how long an hour was that's why they used to light a candle okay okay so that that you don't have to keep that men I got don't think anymore that you light a candle when you cash a meat but the point is that some in Haim says the Riff you don't necessarily understand but don't just throw away a Min the rush number 18 he's building this Oni which I put later on the sheep where it's not clear what the is this is a good opportunity for Min to step in you follow the if there's an unclarity a weakness in it's not clear which way the should be and you look out and the people do X trust the people we'll see in a minute why you trust the people because you have to assume if this is what the from Community does the rim have seen this the people the rim have been man the people that way and sometimes we see this with uh you know broas what bro do you make on a banana okay people make aama and a banana I it is right to make but you know the EV if you made a eights maybe that works but you should make a bro on a but what bro do you make on chocolate we had a whole share on this remember our share on chocolate raisins and if you remember had a whole share on chocolate raisins chocolate coed raisins what broccol do you make on chocolate so I know people who make h on chocolate why not it grows from the ground that's the only way you eat the fruit you don't eat the beans from the Cocoa Tree you eat them as chocolates so they make a braod d on chocolate Okay so that's not the minut the minut is to make a sh when you have a in the middle of a meal so the Mish asked you make a shol in your on your on your Whiskey on your SLI of it why not it's got nothing to do with the meal the Min seems to be people don't make a br on their Whiskey in the middle of the meal meaning sometimes there's areas where the seems like in theory the should be eggs but it's not clear and the people do this follow the people says the rash the people are not just making it up the people have taken um advice and he actually draws a distinction in number 19 there are different kinds of when we're talking about you have to keep an important that the people are doing with the supervision and approval made this helped them do this but the people have that they do they just do something for themselves you can just you know get rid of that Min the question is how do you know how do you know when the Min was made with the consultation with and how do you know we'll talk a little bit more about that maybe in a few minutes but why why would I have to keep such a Minag it wasn't made by kazal we're not talking about a Minag from the Sanhedrin or from kazal it's not Lo like the rambam said so what is it why do I care okay so we'll see that we'll see that Al but have a look at number 20 there's a don't move the boundary fence of your field which the earlier Generations have set up this is the Mitzvah of stealing land meaning you don't steal Land by picking it up and running away with it you steal Land by going out in the middle of the night and moving the fence another foot onto you know into the next door neighbor's land and you have a foot more land you can't you're not allowed to do this so kazal understood or at least we see from ra who seems to be quoting number 21 people mustn't change the minhagim that they have because they say who they sounds like he's quoting a Bry although we don't have this BR how do we know that is a real thing and the key is why does it say the wordon why does it just say don't move your neighbor your neighbor's boundary fence why does it add which earlier Generations put there Min Minag you have to keep the Minag and the Taz rules this on number 22 you're not allowed to change Min from from there as well interestingly I brought you two sources in 23 and 24 which I don't think ever go together one is Pho of Alexandria who was a heniz commentator from the you know early first century and the next is the IM Bor vishnitz I'm sure people would say aavil between them I'm not sure but let's just look at Pho first Pho now what's interesting about pho is Pho doesn't come from the tradition of kazal Pho is a heniz Jew living in Alexandria in Egypt and has no connection really certainly no connection with bavel where they later wrote the gorra and not really any connection very much with ER Israel he's a very interesting kind of test case what were the Jews doing in during the second temple period he lived during the second Temple look what he says number 23 obviously I translated this well I didn't translate it it's a translation from the Greek there's also a a Prohibition you have to be careful to guard minhagim old what aim they Unwritten laws things that you inherited from earli generations and then he says children should inherit from their parents not only their property you don't just inherit your parents property but the that you raised with from your from from the cradle you were raised with in you inherit them the lawyer and don't reject them just because you can't find a source it's very inappropriate to say well there's no written source for this and this calls into you know the play which is very important I have to mention I'm not going to read you from it but everyone has to read this if they haven't already many times Rabbi Professor Dr rup Recon construction um um Professor Kim solic the son of RA solic and a very eminent historian um still very active just produced another um volume of of essays that was been reprinted he's in his mid to late 80s now he wrote a landmark essay 25 years ago called rupture and reconstruction and it's definitely worth the read it's quite a long essay you can get it online just put in rupture reconstruction you'll find a PDF of it atak that recently uh the tradition Journal a couple of journals ago did a whole Edition marking the 25th anniversary of the this Landmark essay reanalyzing it how is how does it received now and how has it changed ruption and reconstruction basically as a historian ra Dr Sal say puts forward a thesis that we used to have what pho just said this kind of mimetic tradition We inherited we saw what our parents did we copied them we daved in shs that we our families are davened in for hundreds and hundreds of years we didn't get everything from books and the 20th century ruptured that not just the second world war but the first world war and even before the first world war there was a disconnection because of all sorts of historical and sociological reasons and when we came to recreate the masora after the second world war or the disaster of the Holocaust we recreated it by necessity from books because we had now pis ala the mishura and pushim and we' lost that that that that Mur which had been so important before and he's not necessarily saying it's a bad thing he's a historian he's not making judgments he's just saying it's a thing and sometimes you wonder you know he kind of starts off why why were our great grandparents who were very very fromen somehow or other what they did is not from enough for us today you know the kiddish cups were too small and you know we we have to keep because and he he basically explains there was this rupture and we've reconstructed from a more written M rather than from a me that you see still I remember D lopan in London don't know if any of you knew danion he was very much a Mur person he had muras from Eastern Europe when he used to ask him if a if a certain shaver was was kosher to uh you know to shave or cut who closeth he'd take it and he'd kind of shave his arm and look at how the hair worked on his own when you asked him how much matah to eat he'd kind of like go like about this much and your hand like you know this he didn't have like a laminated sheet with like this much and this much again I'm not knocking the laminated sheets sometimes if you don't know you got to know um I remember he talked about kadash and yashan um so uh for hundreds of years the ashkenaz community has been lenient about about kadash and we've said that kadash the Mitzvah D of kadash only applies to grain that grew in AR Israel which means it practically doesn't apply because almost no grain has been grown in a Israel for this time and therefore all the grain from Canada and America and from wherever it do we were never m in kadash we always we always ate even though it was technically speaking kadash so now there's a lot of people who are saying well this is ridiculous why are we so lenient in kadash I mean you know now we we don't have to be we can we can get yashan and there's all sorts of bakeries now open we're only yashan only yashan only Yash so I was told of d l was asked if there was a if there was a a loaf of yashan and a loaf of kadash next to each other the kadash that we've been eating for 500 years but now people don't want to eat which one would you take so like he take the Yash surely I mean why take something on which there's a whole h no I take the kadash because I want to make it clear that for 500 years our ancestors have been eating this and we're not forer than them and they knew what they were doing and there's a m it was very much a m person which is interesting because it kind of grates against the the way that we go today but that's really what uh what we're seeing there and if not from Pho then take it from the Vish Reba number 24 it's said in the name of now that all the has been written down what's left of we've written the we've written all what's left as and therefore don't uh don't knock in is an important and there's also M I brought you on the top of page five these are quite short sources a similar Source don't change the boundaries of the world up until now your parents have laid down boundaries and the AL brings down again that is the Mitzvah of Minh so there's an idea of we don't change the boundaries that's our T shabal but there's also an issue of T and I actually talk about this in my book quite a lot the book on SN that I I brought out a year ago if you look at number 27 so Rashi says there there's something which is it's it's mus it's more directive it's more specific it's more it's clearer it's black and white that's and then there's T it's a more sort of organic tradition and that's Minh and if you only have mus then you're missing an entire element to the to the halakic personality you have to have the balance if you just have a father and you don't have a mother then you have an you know an imbalanced parenting and the other way so Min says Rashi is the Tora we mustn't lose that because then we just end up with a with a harsh black and white um everything's oer everything's M but it's not it doesn't work in that way and I brought you the who basically says the same thing look underlined in 29 we mustn't change on from the previous generations okay fine so we talked about created by we talked about created under the guidance of the the there there are other menag which are created by communities which are bottom up and the gamar gives them a lot of respect have a look in number 30 quite famous in the says the Mish says in a place where they do on a p but in the morning meaning everybody didn't do Mal in the afternoon it was the time for cor P it was the time to get ready for S but in the morning some communities did went to work and came home at lunchtime and some communities took the whole day off so in a place where they do Mal so do Mal meaning follow the of the community if you go from a one place to the opposite basically you still stay yourself you you still stay the person that had the old manh because you're going Backus but just make sure you don't cause mlus keep your minhagim but don't cause mlus you you don't have to switch until you become part of the new community but if you're part of a community you have to go along with the communal minhagim a good example of this I think in in even though there not a Sher in is the concept of dud dud that we talked about the the Jewish the Jews rules literally that y did the rules of the Jews when kazal decided to Define what are the in each different community so kazal said well we can't possibly say we can't legisl now what every Community should decide is appropriate or inappropriate speech Behavior Etc address there's some red lines they say you you know you can't walk around flirting with everybody and you can't walk around with all your arms showing they give certain red lines for women maybe for men as well not for now but but say there have to be minhagim the women of the community have to decide for example some of my students sometimes come up to me and they say Rabbi why can't I have a nose ring if Rifka had a nose ring so first of all I'm not sure you can't have a nose ring I mean I'm not getting into that discussion now maybe it depends what kind of nose ring but why is it even relevant the ri had a nose ring why is that relevant to you I mean do we walk around dressed like AB y andov if I walk around dressed like AB they'd lock me up they say neach the guy's got Jerusalem syndrome just you know to of a long long term so the answer is say no the women have to decide in that Community what is appropriate what isn't appropriate this jewelry not that jewelry this stockings not that stocking Etc and if you VIs it from Community a to community B you still stay yourself but you have to adjust like I say you know our students when they uh they visit mes or in for shabas so you go to m in for shabas so how are you meant to dress when you visit m in for shabas so I said you don't have to get dressed up like the locals you're going to dress up like a you know you're going to braid your hair you're going to have a little button- down shirt I said that's called porm you know they they'll think you're making fun of them you they don't expect you to dress up you just have to dress like yourself but adjust in a way that you're not going to get people upset ah you think they should get upset okay but they get upset you can't make mlus you got to adjust the weight so that Minag of the community even if the community created the minhag and the the um and as you said before number 31 Hillel says number 31 you've got to fit in with the community you can't start making that is also part of minhagim as well um and therefore if something is widespread then we take it seriously and and I brought you a whole bunch of sources which I'm not going to go through at length because um you know there's I can summarize it quite quickly that the Jewish people are given a kind of quazi prophetic status there's this famous garim also that leads on from the mission we said that H is asked as Shila about what the is in if pesak falls on AR if AR pesak falls on shabas how do you carry the knife and he goes o I forgot and it's all medic and naked Med because he just gave them Musa that how could they get the H said they n bounce one back and he forgets Thea and he says I don't know what to do let's see what the people do and the next day when they saw people people put the knife in the the horns of the the goat or the wool of the sheep and he says oh that's exactly what the H is trust the people the Jewish people have a kind of almost like a a if just looking number 35 I want to bring out that Source Haru says as follows when the Jews when from Jews when Jews who are who are who are sensitized to to when they do a certain thing who they have a certain it's like the who told them they have this if the people are trying to do then there there's a that helps them how they are meant to behave so again um that the Jewish people have AES we're very very slow to turn around and say everybody's been doing it wrong and you see certain post the is very very very reluctant to take anything that the Jewish people do and say they're wrong the people have got it wrong how how can you say that the generations of the from community that they've got it wrong you know and they didn't know it's difficult to say that now today it's not quite the same because today there's a lot of people who just don't know what they're doing and they just do stuff and they're clueless and they don't really learn and okay I understand that that doesn't create minhagim but in principle the Jewish people there's a lot of of of uh of Reliance invested in that but let's talk about two other things before we finish which is minhagim from Families how do I know if I'm Bound by my family minhagim people ask me all the all the time my my parents arees they say and they don't eat gabs but I don't have a and I I don't know if it's their n or just their appetite but I I I want to eat I want to eat gabs the truth is good luck in Israel finding anything that's kab in Israel because everything has become Kish I'm an old litvac I like my K and and you know and even even the canade like a potato flour now you have to really try hard to eat gabrs but are you Bound by gabrs if your family never ate gabrs I have a friend uh that I was at University with many years ago his family doesn't eat turkey doesn't eat turkey turkey why don't they eat turkey so when I say to him why don't you eat turkey so he says well why do you eat turkey meaning you know a bird has to have a m going back to ancient times and turkeys were discovered in the new world and somebody looked at them hierarchically and said oh look a big chicken and it's not really a big chicken it's not the same species it doesn't even look like a big chicken now you can say there's a Mur cuz people have been eating turkeys for for 400 years but he said my family has a masora someone way back in the day saw a turkey doing something which is you know one of the signs of a trafer bird we don't eat turkey so let's have a look at number 39 so the gorim again the same goras we were talking about the B ban who were the B ban is it a family or is it a community that's a big discussion let's assume for now it's a family the B the children of this family B they used to have a minut that they wouldn't go on Journeys on Fridays it's always a question you're flying back from America do you take the flight on Thursday from Newark that gets you in like early Friday or do you do you risk it take the flight that gets in at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and it'll be all right so the B ban they had a minut they wouldn't even go from T to siden S to siden is a very short boat trip it's a short boat trip I don't know how long it is an hour two hours max that you never know the boat could get into trouble it's Friday it's shabas so who R the children came to RAB they said to him our fathers could manage this we we can't live with this we we we do business on Fridays we go to work on Friday mornings we want to travel on Fridays so he says I'm sorry your parents have accepted this on themselves I'm sorry you're stuck it's a family Min now if the are a community rather than a you could say okay this is a community Min but maybe family is different but if they're a family maybe family menog sticks however the Yi gives a different version of the story which is actually very interesting number 40 says thei very similar story what if the people move location and they want to change their so this is a story came to name it's a different name but maybe it's the same story they wouldn't go onto the to the they wouldn't go out into the to the Mediterranean so actually if you look in the MIM they many of the MIM say what was the here it wasn't the shabas it was a that we don't want to leave erel so if we go out on a boat into the Mediterranean to to shortcut down to to to Israel so we we're going to Kitz and who wants to go to Kit even on a boat trip who wants to go toit so they don't want to do it so fine we don't our parents didn't do that sh they came to ask they said to him do we have to follow that so he said don't change the men of your ancestors who are laying under the ground you can't just reject it but then the gorah comes back at that and says one second can't you do what's the problem it's like a go to the r and doar nadarim so the gamar says one second if you make a you can do but how can you do for your grandparents so the G says what are you talking about it must be even easier if you can do for your own n which you willingly undertook surely you could do atar for something you never even agreed to that you just inherited from your parents and the gamar says actually you know you're right it is's no problem being banned by your parents actually this this is a issue it's not a Min issue it's a issue are you allowed to leave AR Israel yes or no it's a black and white issue but it could be you're not bound by your family members and many of them a bring down that you're not necessarily Bound by Family minhagim you may need to doad but look at number 42 I am like vinegar compared to my father who is like wine the famous because my father if he ate meat today he waited 24 hours to eat meat to eat milk cheese sorry in the same meal I won't eat but I'll wait till the next meal so why didn't they turn around to him and say you have a family Min your father was like wine that's very nice your father was like wine and you like vinegar but you have to follow the Min any question yes oh oh very very very good okay very good let just hold that hold that thought for a second hold that thought for a second so number 43 a little bit deals with you the has a Chua I haven't got time to read it all where he says what you're telling me that you had some kind of Pious great grandparent so because they he gives them examples they DAV nates every day they went to the mikah area every every shabas so every for for a thousand Generations you have to do that you're no less Pious than your grandparents you just want to do something different kind of addresses your point and says no you're not bound by Pious great grandparents you have your own version of piety you have your own minhagim you have your own you're not necessarily Bound by them and actually many of theim take on that you can do on gab for example says you can do and you don't you're not necessarily bound why people want to be m is a good question but it's a real thing okay so we already said a that goes against is a if it goes against the C then you can't have a like that but many cases these as you said areas Etc so family minhagim are very interesting but just finally on individual minhagim this in many ways is the easiest of all because the individual Minag basically takes a status as a Ned if you want to take on something you can take on anything you like you can stand on your head you can you know refuse to eat chocolate for the rest of your life life it's a n you have the ability to to to to refine your own personal a Hashem look for a second in number 47 on the last page says R RAV hsh when he gets to nador he says it starts now at the end of our midbar the sphere of what we call free willed legislation it opens the possibility for individuals as well as communities and the nation as a whole to establish permanent rules for ensuring the faithful keeping of the dictates of the Torah and the gamar says number 48 Damar if something is but you want to take on a you can't just ignore that you've made a you can't just be it's a but okay if it's a so you can do and the which I brought you was the last Source he says therefore if you want to start a new Minh always say B and if you don't say beder if you intended to do it for permanent L then you better go do hatas nadarim even if you never said anything even if you just took it on as a as a Min maybe if you did it three times even without explicitly thinking so you you might have to run to to do hatar but it's it's it's a another it takes effect and in that sense a has a very strong status because is AER um I remember when I was uh a young man I used to feel I needed to prove myself by screwing shelves onto the walls with in my young marriage state and doing Di why in my house and do all that kind of stuff so my wife knew very patiently that I was completely useless at this stuff now I don't do anything um but uh one famous Sunday afternoon I was screwing shelves onto the wall Very frustratedly and the whole lot came fly flying down on top of my head so I ran out of the room and I said to my wife I am never ever ever going to do any kind of Home Improvements ever again for the rest of my life so my wife sort of nodded very kind of patiently and then and then when I no I didn't say BL that so then when I calmed down she said okay who's going to put my shelves up then okay so I says well not me so she goes m in 15 minutes you can do atarus nadarim and then yeah she she work it out she s me straight to the rft to do atarim and those shelves they went up they were a bit wonky but they went up so okay what Have We Said Today lots of different kinds of minhagim lots of different kind of um categories of minhagim but they they have a real status and I agree age with you that sometimes people can hide behind them but that's it's not something you can take lightly Minag is a real thing um and we will move onward butm two weeks from now looking at some really interesting minhagim that we haven't looked at before in the meantime I wish you a a very happy healthy couple of weeks we should have three weeks from now I'll be back I'll be back three weeks from now thank you for the clarification but there will be a substitute next week