Preface:
Micha Berger - The esteemed moderator of the Avodah list - and I have oft bitterly disagreed on the conflation of halachah and aggadah. Recently we discussed Rabbi Soloveichik's original takes on several points. I asked permission to share his thoughts on this list.
KT
RRW
Part 1" A side effect of the loss of "erev Shabbos Jews" (which is RYBS's : term, not mine) iýs that they don't know how to relate to the notion of : something done to aid avodah, but isn't a chiyuv/issur.
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: As one fellow put it on scjm recently: I don't like "shades of d issur".
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I countered -- and you would NOT agree to my seifa, I presume -- that not only must one accept chumros and not only walk shuras hadin, but the shurah between din and chumrah is therefore blurry.
Part 2
"You have my permission, although I would prefer being quoted by name. Even if your point is to present it as a hava amina to reject. (And U would also enjoy seeing the responses.)
I think chumros are part of qadesh es atzmekha bemah shemutar lakh, ve'saisa hayashar vehatov, and Rabbah bar R' Huna's obligation to pay the workers who broke his barrels. And recall that the gemara ends up saying the lattermost is both a chumrah and a chiyuv -- at least for RbRH. (It's BM 83a.)
Chumros are a place where aggadita and halakhah meet, where each person is obligated to live up to their own ideals, regardless of whether it can be spelled out as a blanket statement for all of Kelal Yisrael with shiurim or whatnot"
I think chumros are part of qadesh es atzmekha bemah shemutar lakh, ve'saisa hayashar vehatov, and Rabbah bar R' Huna's obligation to pay the workers who broke his barrels. And recall that the gemara ends up saying the lattermost is both a chumrah and a chiyuv -- at least for RbRH. (It's BM 83a.)
Chumros are a place where aggadita and halakhah meet, where each person is obligated to live up to their own ideals, regardless of whether it can be spelled out as a blanket statement for all of Kelal Yisrael with shiurim or whatnot"
--Micha Berger
Moderator of. Avodah and Areivim
3 comments:
I do not moderate Areivim. I run the technology, but delegated that job away, thank G-d.
-micha
I believe that there are two forms of chumrah that need to be further identified and correctly applied. One is the personal chumrah that is not meant to be collective but originates within the personal perspective of an individual in his/her relationship with Torah. In the gemara, you find many cases of a chumrah being practiced by a member of Chazal which was not practices by other members. Individual distncition is important in this realm and the fact that this chumrah was not universally practices indicates that it was deemed inappropriate to just copy another's chumrah. It, thereby, had no connection to you or to your avodah.
On the other hand, it does seem that there is a category of collective chumrah, chumrahs that should apply to everyone. Why are these in the category of chumrah and not part of the basic Halacha? There may be different approaches in answering this question but the reality is still that we are left with chumrahs that are meant to be followed by all.
Our challenge is to figure out, in the annals of our history, which chumrahs were intended to be personal and which communal. I would add, though, that both categies, I believe, are part of the directive of Kedoshim tihyu, and that it is important for us, as individuals, to know the areas of exitstence in which we want to be stringent and know that this stringency is for us, individually, and not necessarily for the other.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
I think the sugya of minhag as having the force of a neder to distance the community from an issur (Y.D. siman ריד' םעיף ב') is very relevant to the communal chumra issue.
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