Jewish Folklore 4

Every year at Hannuka time, someone posts online "segulot" for Hannuka. A "segulah" (literally, a treasure) is an action that has a positive effect, with no rational reason behind it. There are many segulot listed in the Talmud, as well as later Jewish sources. My understanding of a segulah is that it is like a prayer said by actions rather than by words. I DO take segulot seriously. The eating of certain foods on Rosh HaShanah that hint at blessing and protection is already found in the Talmud. RAMBAM, however, rejects these practices as superstition, never mentioning them or giving them credence. The annually posted Hannukah list includes many things I have never heard of, or seen sources for. (Like making wishes over the Hannukah candles. Fortunately, it does not urge blowing them out so the wish will come true.) Among the others, is a list of meditations of RAMBAM to be held in mind while frying the jelly donuts. But RAMBAM never mentions jelly donuts, or even a custom of eating fried foods on Hannukah. His very consistent opposition to segulot makes the assertion that these ideas come from RAMBAM very suspicious, to say the least. (A friend said to me  on this topic: "How many times can a person roll over in his grave?") But people love "lucky secrets", and this post on Segulot of Hannukah has gone viral. Ascribing a popular practice to a great personage is one of the most difficult things to deal with. Is it real? Well, if Rabbi So and So said it, it must be!" But did Rabbi So and So really say it? In Israel, on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, a rumor circulated that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had ordered every home to light three candles "for protection". Telephone squads called people to urge fulfilling this "order" as a segulah. Those who called me could give no explanation as to why this was put in place, therefore I ignored it. Soon afterward, the Chabad headquarters completely denied the rumor. The alleged connection to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, resulted in hundreds of thousands of people performing a meaningless act. This becomes all the more problematic when an enactment is ascribed to a great Rabbi, but we don't know if this is factual or merely connecting a custom to a name. One of the greatest personages in Jewish history is Rabbi Gershom ben Yehuda (c.960 - 1028). He is known to this day as the "Light of the Exile". Living one generation before RASHI, he is described by him as "the Rabbi of All Ashkenazi Jewry". Legend has it that in the year 1000, he convened a great synod, and made certain enactments on pain of excommunication, for several vital topics. He banned polygamy except in very rare cases. He enacted that a woman could not be divorced without her consent. He forbade reading other people's mail and required good treatment for Jews who had apostatized but now wished to return. These are known as "the bans of Rabbenu Gershom". However, there is no contemporary record of this synod having taken place, nor the bans being issued by the illustrious rabbi. One hundred and fifty years later, we find some references to the event and the bans, bemoaning that we have no written text, that would indicate the nature and scope of the bans. Other sources simply quote these practices as "the custom of Franco-German communities". There is a great deal of difference if something is a custom or an official ban. Besides the severity of the action, the question arises that if these were, in fact, bans, they would apply to all the descendants of Ashkenazi Jewry. If they were customs, they would have no halachic force outside France and Germany. (There is no truth in the commonly heard idea that the bans were "only" for a thousand years). But the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We simply do not know. Recently, someone tried to convince me that the kitniyot "ban", stems from Rabbenu Gershom as well, despite its not being mentioned for another two hundred years. Folklore and halachah can get very intertwined. We must be careful when new things arise, checking our information about origins and attributions. . Sometimes, the information is already hidden by the mists of time.