Say a chassid is stuck somewhere over Pesach and the only matzah available is machine matzah. The Divrei Chaim said that machine matzah is chometz gamur, and chassidim don't eat it. But can this be classified perhaps as a minhag, and can this chossid rely on the poskim who are mattir machine matzah, to be yotzeh the mitzvah of eating matzah on pesach?

(I'm actually unsure if one must eat matzah on Pesach or if one is only prohibited from eating chometz, but similar examples can be thought of for many different scenarios)

Eating matzah is a mitzvah afaik

as far as the original question, i don't know- this feels somehat similar to the stance that some have that one is not yotzeh megillah on purim from a a megillah written in ksav arizal

Perhaps the machines weren't as good in the DC's days. Assuming that hasn't changed, the DC was paskening a shaylah. At most it is a minhag in the sence that your minhag is to be machmir like the DC. I would be surprised to hear a chasidisha posek today rule machine matza as chametz.
There is a chiyuv to eat Matza by the Seder. After that there is no chiyuv. The Gra holds one fulfills a mitzva for every kazais you eat the entire pesach. Most disagree. (When you do a mitzva you are not required to do its called a mitzva kiyumis.)
I don't think this is a case of minhag oker halachah. It is a question of a psak that a certain matza is really chametz. If you have minhag not to eat machine matza (I hear some say kabalistically the matza should be round) then you definitely would eat the machine matza the first night if you have no other choice.
We don't generally say minhag oker halachah. It is usually used to justify cases where a longstanding minhag exists (from the time of the Rishonim say) which is halachikaly questionable. The idea of minhag oker halachah is a favorite thing thrown around by people who want to show uproot halachah. (Not you of course.)

For the seder I MIGHT consider it (if you can yotzie with machine matzo anyway)....
The rest of the week, NO WAY.....

interesting to note i was taught in school that we teach those coming close to yiddishkeit first about minhagim (matzo ball soup, hamentashen, etc) and that envokes feelings of yiddishkiet to do mitzvos..
i always thought this may be misleading to people, who think they're in it for the traditional aspects of Judiasm, and then we tell them the real crux of yiddishkeit is alot harder than they think...

שתי תורות בישראל

Yismach Moishe didn't eat any matzoh on Pesach other then the two kezayis mitsva. And machine matzah is probably the only area in which Satmar et al must feel pretty uncomfortable, given the Chasam Sofer's stand on it vs. Divrei Chayim's.

Does that mean he ate one kezayit at each of the two sedarim, two each night, or two the first night and none the second? And whichever kezeitim he omitted, did he do anything (e.g. read the hagada for koreich but not eat ) or skip the reading, too?

And I suppose this means he didn't wash or bentsh at the other Yom Tov or Shabbat meals? Or is there some non-gebruchts mezonot that that escapes my mind, on which he could be kovea seudah?

I also find this hard to believe. shaya_getzl- can you provide any sources for that?

I read today that a minhag is not oker a halachah of hilchos isur.

Tell that to the Rama who in teshuvah 124 discusses the leniency in Moravia to drink stam yeynam and in the Rhine region to eat cheilev she-al ha-keres, both of which he doesn't disallow on the grounds of minhag avoteiyhem be-yadam. This teshuvah is discussed in R. Sperber's Minhagei Yisrael pp. 49-59.

It is a well known custom. However, other wrote strongly against it and I do not know of anyone who still follows it or anyone who ever recommended following it, including those who did so themselves.

I am sure that those questions are addressed somewhere. But if I remember correctly, he did not wash or eat matzoh outside of the matzos mitzvah by the sedorim.

With regards to more details with regards to Minhag Oiker Halacha:
ראה לדוגמא מג"א סי' תרצ סקכ"ב בשם הרא"ש בביאורי הסמ"ג

It's an interesting inyen to look into, but without doing so I can tell you that the Klausenbrger Ruv zatzal"l has a tsheeveh in divrei yatziv discussing whether one may be mitztaref for mezimen with people who have only eaten machine matzos. Iirc he paskens that one may not as they are eating something 'usser'. Ayin shom.

mosheshmeal
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I was told that mingak oikel halacha stems from hilchos loive umalve.

I'm not sure one can really bring raayos from leniencies of the Rema, because as far as wine goes, in Europe they were famously lenient about stam yeynam, probably for lack of choice, and chelev is a defitional question: If they held that chelev she'al hakeres is not chelev assur, than that's that.

Possibly, but if I recall correctly, the issue was that this was specifically cheilev that is assur by everybody else except for those who had this unique normative practice otherwise. True about the wine, but the point is that halachah is more flexible than the law codes would seem to otherwise indicate. Common law, if you will.

I think it's possible to find cases where rabbis use a limud zechut to bend over backwards to justify what a community does [provided it's a holy community]. Yes, by definition it's justifiable. But still a justification is needed.

The AH was definitely a NP-nik, but honestly, would you actually follow some of his hetterim? Are you comfortable feeding birds on Shabbos Shirah because you're not really feeding the birds, you're benefiting yourself by expressing gratitude? Are you going to not check for bugs?

That's not the point what I would or would not do. The point is as you say, he had feelings for Normative Practice. The point is that rabbis used to take stands. They still do, but only to justify the practices in certain communities. If a certain demographic does X, which is seemingly against Shulchan Aruch, it takes clever rabbis maybe 10 seconds to come up with 3 limudei zechut. If a different community does Y, that's automatically evidence of their perfidy.

At the end of the day, one needs a mix. Way back, a very long time ago on h.com, I believe I posted something about a decision matrix, using 1. seforim, 2. rabbis, 3. normative practice and 4. one's brain to come to personal decision.
The question then becomes the relative import of each of those elements in the decision matrix. A BT may use an ArtScroll halachah book as primary, a chassid may use his rabbi as trumping Shulchan Aruch, an FFB may use normative practice in his community...but that's not to say they don't all use a mix of those four elements, the question is in what relative amounts.

As my wife often says, [most recently in the context of h.com], no extreme is good.

There's a difference between that, and, say, eating pork. If there would be a holy community eating pork, that would be bad, because pork is assur. But eating this fat is different because they are not disputing the fact that eating cheilev is assur, but that this fat is indeed cheilev. This example cannot be invoked as a case of Minhag Meshaber Halacha because to these people, there was never a question in the first place.Yes, in a case where following strict-line halacha would reduce the community to rags and rubble, and there is a tenuous halachic out, then indeed that tenuous out should be followed. But if absolutely no out can be found, then the people will do what they need to do anyway, and at that point they are anussim."Better they should eat diseased schechted meat than diseased treife meat."Of course it's possible to find cases like that. I don't think it's any better than the modern-day tally-poskim.

OK, but all that goes back to the checks and balances among the 4 elements I mentioned above of sefarim, rabbis, normative practice, and brains. And ultimately halachah is king but even kings have consorts and ministers.

Sure. So did others. But others didn't.

Sure. So where exactly does Halacha Change?

I think it happens on its own due to various stresses and influences. Like Newton's Law, left on its own, it might not change, but live among nonJews with their own superstitions, or among nonJews with whom we need to trade to survive economically, and halachah will change.
Halachah is designed to ensure the survival of the Jewish people in a hostile world until Mashiach arrives and to facilitate our sincere avodah. But the halachah therefore needs to be responsive to changing needs and circumstances during our long exile. Of course, that is NOT to say it is ok to change halachah, just that examples where halachah changes is not a null set.


By the way, look at that thread about which hand to use to cover one's eyes during shema. There too all four elements were manifest: brains [if we use our left hands to hold lulav or to hold a kiddush cup, it makes sense our left hand is used in other practices such as covering our eyes], normative practice [I haven't seen people use their left hands], rabbis [I heard this is what we're supposed to do], and seforim [look it up in the Be'er Moshe's kuntres on ittar yad].
Different people weigh those four elements differently due to personal biases, and different cases may call for those four elements being weighed differently, but I think all four elements go into the decision making matrix.

Gabbe [or anyone else], when you are faced with a question about how to do something, or whether to do something, how do you decide? Do you look around you to see what others in your community do? Do you look in a book? Do you ask a rabbi? Do you come to a logical and consistent conclusion?

The purpose of halacha is to serve Hashem. Thus I was upset when you wrote "
Halachah is designed to ensure the survival of the Jewish people in a hostile world until Mashiach arrives and to facilitate our sincere avodah. " Then I realised perhaps you weren't discussing halacha's purpose but rather the way it is designed. Yet I still don't understand what you are saying. Certain halachos clearly are designed to ensure our survival as an ooma bain haakum. Stam yanum and pas akum for example. But Hilchos Psukay Dzimra (what I'm learning now ) is there for us to serve Hashem regardless of our precarious galus state.

Thank you for your comment.


I agree. I did not mean that halachah is chicken soup that gives us a warm and fuzzy reason to stay traditional. Which is why I said, "to facilitate our sincere avodah". I agree halachah is there to provide direction how to serve hashem.

What I meant is that it seems that halachah is sometimes flexible when it is no longer viable and would stand in the way of let's say our economic survival. For example, the rule that we can't trade with nonJews within three days of their festivals, yet we all trade with nonJews during the December holiday season. Or when young ladies were being lost to secularization, the rabbis relaxed the prohibitions against formal schooling in Poland [think the challenges that the BY system was meant to address].

Yes, I would agree with you that I was discussing the way halachah is designed with built in flexibility, rather than its purpose.

On the other hand, admitting halachah is flexible and that Normative Practice is Halachah's consort, sounds precariously like non-Orthodox movements and those who speak of Catholic Israel. However, I believe the zohar says that the difference between heaven and hell is thickness of a hair. What was the impetus for those changes to the contents of PDZ? Did those changes materialize spontaneously out of thin air, or were they in response to anything?


But take PSDZ for instance, which you are learning now. I thought halachah doesn't change and we don't have new berachot not sourced in shas. Where did baruch sheamar come from? And the contents of PSDZ have certainly changed over time.

I don't know the answer to your question. And I don't feel like aproaching anyone with the question at this point though I would at a later point. You are raising a very good point though.
I can say this much:
1 My rebby zatzal said the Chazon Ish said Torah never changes. What changes is the pakaging. What this means I don't know. I say it to mention that he did once raise the issue.
2 I found the developement of PSDZ surprising. It see ms mIzmor Shir wasn't said untill the 17th century! Could it be we didn't need as many tfilos to prepare us for Shmona Esray before then? It sounds like a dockek teretz though.
3 Perhaps there is an idea od progressive giluyim that happpen throughout history. ASrtscroll has posted about that in the past. I read a peice from Prof. Ellman quoting Reb Tzadok and Rav Hutner on it. (Rav Hutner has a famous letter on how klal Yisroel had the koach to accept the Shulchan Aruch on itself.)
That much for now.
What have you heard on the subject?

In Ashkenaz. Sephardic versions of the siddur pretty much always had it; IIRC, PDZ already appears in the siddur Rav Amram.

See page 52/660.
http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/books/djvu/1107818/index.djvu

My understanding is it doesn't appear in a siddur until 5303 [source: Tikkun Tefillah in the siddur Otzar Ha-tefillot].


Yes, but to what extent?

Amsterdam was both A & S territory; this is an A siddur.
http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/books/djvu/11641...s&zoom=page
See page 8.

Whichever. PDZ is a minhag; minhag changes.
(I'm deliberately selectively answering posts; the longer one above will hopefully get attention tomorrow)

Interesting, thanks. When is that siddur from? Does it pre-date the 16th century?



Sure minhag changes, but there are poskim who rule that one should say the entire seder of PDZ in order even at the expense of tefillah be-tzibbur, so even if the development of PDZ is minhag changing, it's certainly minhag trumping halachah, at least according to those poskim.


Of course the Torah never changes. Since Rishonim times that has been on of the ikkarim. But does halachah change? The irony is that the Chazon Ish himself was attacked by those to the Right of even him for innovating the concept that the secular are tinokot she-nishbe'u. Even the Chatam Sofer's aphorism of everything chadash being forbidden from the torah is possibly more religious polemic than factually literally true.

Is it muttar to eat a מומי”א? Put another way, if people weren't already doing it, would it seem muttar?

http://menachemmendel.net/blog/2008/01/24/flesh-eating-jews/

I can't be sure which siddur it's from right now because this computer doesn't have djvu. I picked the earliest one I could find; I think it's this one from 1490. I could ask someone who may have access to earlier siddurim in manuscript to check; AFAIK the online manuscripts are mostly Ashkenazi.

AFAIK, this is more of a Chassidishe thing, and even then the Rav ShuA for one does not pasken that way. The logic is based on Kabbalah, which raises the whole Kabbalah v. Halacha problem, not minhag mevattel halacha.

The minhag of pesukei dezimra being oker the halacha of tefillah betzibbur? You're going to have to do better, since I'm unaware of any commandment to the effect that "Thou Shalt Attend Synagogue and Not Pray Privately."
I think you have a better chance with Sukkah on Shemini Atzeres, which I think is a bona fide example of a minhag bein mevattel halacha.

This is not a question of halacha changing. It's a question of what the halacha is.
I wouldn't bet on it, and even if so, the chadash he was referring to was not using the halachic process to dispute a pre-existing halacha, but to criticize things like organs in shul.

Reb Yerucham Levovitz in the begining of this weeks parsha (Mishpatim) explains how Rebbi Akiva could be mchadesh halachos that were previously unknown. If someone could explain what he is saying I'd apreciate it.

ok

See also Orchos Tzadikim towards the end. I don't know p'shat.