Q&A: The Obligation to Follow Ancestral Customs Nowadays
The Obligation to Follow Ancestral Customs Nowadays
Question
Rabbi Rabinovitch’s approach is that ancestral or communal custom has no halakhic significance; only local custom does. Therefore, from a purely halakhic standpoint, a person can choose for himself whichever custom he wants. He also says that custom has value, but not something that is halakhically binding.
What do you think? Is there a halakhic obligation to follow the customs of one’s community?
Answer
I have a novel point for you and for him: our local custom is to follow ancestral customs. By the way, at the beginning of the chapter “In a place where the custom is…” they say to the people of Mishna, “The custom of your forefathers is in your hands.” They are speaking about ancestral custom. Except that in those days that was equivalent to local custom, because the family lived in the same place for generations. So there is room to argue that what was really meant was the custom of the place, not of the forefathers.
So in origin, custom was indeed apparently determined by place, but in our world place has become virtual, since the world is very dynamic and people move around. Therefore it makes no sense to determine status by place. The solution they found was to determine it by origin, which is a static and fixed matter.
The obligation to follow custom is a matter of Jewish law. Therefore there is a halakhic obligation to follow ancestral customs.
But that is only with regard to customs as such. Halakhic customs (that is, a custom to rule one way or another on a halakhic question) have no status whatsoever. A person should do what seems correct to him in the topic. Or, if he is not qualified for that, then follow his rabbi.
Discussion on Answer
I explained.
In practice it seems there is not such a big gap between the approaches. Rabbi Rabinovitch writes in Si’ach Nachum that there is no such thing as ruling for Sephardim according to the Shulchan Arukh and for Ashkenazim according to the Rema; rather, the halakhic authority should rule according to what seems correct to him in the Talmudic passage. On the other hand, there are various considerations such as not increasing dispute and so on, and therefore one has to be careful when changing a custom.
Seemingly, the reason for following the local custom is because of dispute, so that a community can observe the commandments without unnecessary friction and while preserving the local halakhic authority. What does that reason have to do with ancestral custom when their descendants live in different places and have no connection with one another? As for the people of Mishna themselves, one can discuss whether that is local custom or ancestral custom (the children continued living in the same place and community as the forefathers. If Mishna is a person’s name, it should have said “the custom of your father”). So there is no proof from there. As a consequence of the view I presented here, it also seems unreasonable to apply local custom to rules of halakhic decision-making (otherwise you end up with the paradox of a local custom not to follow local custom in specific laws, which undermines the whole purpose of following local custom).
You are assuming incorrect premises and drawing mistaken conclusions from them.
You wrote, “The obligation to follow custom is a matter of Jewish law. Therefore there is a halakhic obligation to follow ancestral customs.”
But the claim is that there is no obligation to follow custom at all except when it is the custom of a place. From where do you get an obligation to follow a custom that is not a local custom?