On changing customs

It’s hard for me to answer that. I’m not at all convinced that there is consistency and method in all of this. In general, customs and customs laws are a matter of feelings more than of clear lines.
In any case, the difference in attitude is probably related to the context (to what extent the change expresses rebellion or fear of more far-reaching changes, reform, etc.). —————————————————————————————— emir: Thanks for the answer.

Apparently, the level of resistance to changing custom is more related to context than clear lines of when “the custom of Israel is Torah” and “should not be changed” and when it is not so bad if the custom changes.

The fact is that when the Hasidim stopped praying in the Ashkenazic version and invented their own version [the Sephardic version], there were “explosions” and outcries about the matter, but when their opponents, the Gra’s students who immigrated to Israel, continued to pray in the Ashkenazic version but made several changes to it, not only did they not see this as a problem, but it became a “Jewish custom.”

The Hasidim were perceived as subversives and trespassers. The change in the text they made raised the ire of the opponents * but when the opponents themselves did so, they trusted them and of course their rabbi, the Gra, and their changes were perceived as legitimate [and even today, after the discord between the Hasidim and the opponents has subsided, the prayer in their text has become legitimate, and even if there is discontent on the part of the Lithuanian rabbis about the matter, it is not expressed in the same outcries from the period of the dispute, and will be discussed in the AGM of the O’Chap Ch. 24]


*An interesting anecdote is that among the Hasidim of the old Rebbe in Vilna, they said Hallel in Arabic on Passover night, as was the Sephardic custom that the Hasidim had adopted. The Hasidim and the leaders of the community in Vilna were furious and angrily quoted the words of the Rema, “And we do not practice all this because we do not say Hallel at all at night in the synagogue.” The old Rebbe answered what he answered, and what is interesting for our purpose here is that the Gra’s own students who immigrated to Israel also adopted the Sephardic custom of saying Hallel on Passover night in Arabic, which has become the accepted custom today among all Ashkenazim in Israel, not just the Hasidim and those who pray in their own version.