Q&A: Moderate Sephardic Halakhic Rulings
“Moderate Sephardic Halakhic Rulings”
Question
What do you think about all the recent talk about reviving the lenient positions of Sephardic authorities on various issues? On the one hand, changes in Jewish law like these do fit your approach; on the other hand, in the end the Ashkenazim were 90% of the Jewish people before the Holocaust (Wikipedia), so for example when Rabbi Haim Amsalem permits his leniency regarding mikvehs on the basis of Sephardic rabbis, how can I rely on that at all? The rabbis of the West are a tiny minority within the Jewish people, a minority of a minority (they are not even all the Sephardim).
And in that context, another question: when we say that one may rely on an individual opinion in a pressing situation, does that mean that he is actually correct? Or is it simply that if he is in the minority I may not rely on him even if in my eyes he is right, and only in a pressing situation is it permitted (according to the view that one must listen to our contemporary rabbis because of “follow the majority,” not necessarily because of “according to all that they instruct you,” which is the middle position among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), for example in the homilies of Rabbenu Nissim)? But that still would not mean he is actually right, and if I relied on him and he was mistaken, then I’m the one who gets burned.
Answer
This really isn’t all that recent. It seems to me that Zvi Zohar started this trend, and many have already struck hard at his position and shown that quite a few Sephardic rabbis were stringent.
As far as I’m concerned, the ethnic origin of the halakhic decisor does not interest me very much. The question is whether he is right. So I do not see any relevance in whether these were Sephardic sages or Ashkenazic ones. And even those who maintain that the Shulchan Arukh binds Sephardim and the Rema binds Ashkenazim (I am not among them, except perhaps when I am in doubt), that refers to the Shulchan Arukh and the Rema, not to Sephardic or Ashkenazic rabbis nowadays.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion, no. When you have a position, you should follow it. When you don’t have a position, then the laws of custom apply, and then there is room for communal customs. I wrote that when I am in doubt, it is different.
Doesn’t the custom that each person follows the rulings of his own community obligate him by force of “do not forsake”?