Custom 1

In an earlier post, I differentiated between "Tradition" and "Custom" I went into some detail on "Tradition". Let's now discuss custom.
The fact is that that the classical sources deal very little with custom. The primary source is a fairly brief statement in the Mishnah (core work of the Talmud), which teaches the following: On festivals, nearly all work is forbidden, similar to Shabbat. For two of the festivals, Passover and Sukkot, we have a "full festival" at the beginning and end (one day in Israel and two days in the Diaspora), with several intermediate days. These intermediate days are called "chol hamo'ed" (the week days of the festival). On chol hamo'ed some labors are forbidden, while others are permitted (primarily those which, if not done, would result in a loss). Passover is a unique situation, in that the day before Passover, although not technically a holiday, had the offering of the Passover sacrifice in the afternoon, while the celebratory eating of the Paschal lamb took place only at night, with the commencement of the Passover holiday. By rabbinic enactment, work was restricted on the afternoon of the offering, similar to chol hamo'ed. We are informed, however, that some places had the custom of not doing work on the morning of Passover eve, while other places continue until mid day.. If one goes from a place that does work, to a place that doesn't, if a permanent move, one abandons his previous practice and adopts the custom of his new home. If a temporary stay, one needs to follow whichever practice is stricter. We see from this two things. First, that customs need to be observed. Second, that at least at that time, customs were neither personal nor familial, but geographic.Although we do find elsewhere "the custom of their ancestors is in their hands", this clearly means the ancestors of a particular community.
The Mishnah is discussed in the Gemmara (the two together make up the Talmud). We have two Gemmarot, one of the Sages of the Holy Land, which we call the Jerusalem Talmud, the other of the Sages of Babylon, which we call the Babylonian Talmud. Usually, the Babylonian goes into much more detail in its explanation of the Mishnah. But in this case, the Babylonian Talmud only discusses the apparent meaning and implications of this statement of the Mishnah, while the Jerusalem Talmud goes into an uncharacteristically lengthy discussion of a variety of customs; including which are valid, and which are not.However, it also mentions various of cases of rabbis coming into communities where customs which made no sense were observed, yet they were careful to respect and maintain the local custom. In the Babylonia Talmud, when rabbis came across a custom which they found improper, they spoke up against it. In the Jerusalem Talmud, customs, even if in error, were to be respected and maintained. How did these diverse views effect different Jewish communities in the post-Talmudic era? That will be my next post.