Jewish Folklore 9

I rarely comment online about Jewish topics, because everyone thinks they know, and is ready for a fight. I tend to forget that things that are obvious to me are far from most people's awareness. To illustrate, just  a few  year ago, someone posted "The Laws of Mourning for the Omer Period". I commented "Laws...or Customs?" I questioned how something could be a law, when it is neither mentioned in Talmud, or any of the great poskim until about 700 years ago, and then only regarding weddings and haircuts. Only 400 hundred years ago did it become about large parties with music, and only within the last century did it become about private listening to music as well. I sarcastically expressed admiration for those who could know a law that has no source! The answer I received was "you are apparently unaware of the views of contemporary rabbis". I left it there. Upon thinking more deeply about it, I realized that I was dealing with a much more fundamental problem, that was in no way new. In fact, it goes back to the era of RAMBAM and Tosafot (about 1200). I call it "the problem of how to read a book; from the beginning or from the end?" One can read a book from the beginning, and watch the chapters unfold. But if chapter 8 contains discrepancies that don't fit in with the earlier chapters, the book will be fatally flawed, no matter how beautifully written. (Unless a subsequent chapter satisfactorily reconciles the contradictions). This is especially true if these discrepancies occur in a sequel. "Hey..did this author even read the original book?" This can easily be seen in terms of the scriptures of other faiths. They may sound beautiful, and even indicate where the ideas are "hinted at" or "foretold" in Tanach, but if we read from the beginning, we will easily see that there is a major "disconnect" between the Tanach and these writings. Reading backwards, they fit beautifully, reading from the beginning...not so much. Within Judaism, this problem revolves around the concept of "halachah K'batrai" (The halachah follows the later authority). The logic here is that the later authority will have seen and considered the arguments of the earlier authority. If he rejected these arguments, he must have had an excellent reason, even if this reason is unknown to us. RAMBAM, in his introduction to his great halachic work, Mishneh Torah, states that this principle cannot be applied to post-Talmudic times. After the Talmud, all rabbis' words are to be seen as non-authoritative interpretations, to be judged on their veracity and logic by subsequent scholars. The approach of the Franco-German Tosafists was different. Everything handed down by tradition is valid, and seeming contradictions must be reconciled. Customs, even folklore, must be seen in this light. The accepted viewpoint must be upheld, with opposing, earlier views reinterpreted until they fit. Although the Maimonist view is generally accepted by Sepharadim, and the Tosafist view by Ashkenazim, this is by no means a hard and fast rule. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century, two great Ashkenazi works of halachah were published. Both were widely heralded at the beginning. But soon, it was recognized that their approaches were as different as night and day. One was "reading from the beginning", with critical analysis of all opinions, one was "reading from the end", accepting every opinion and folkloric assumption as not only valid, but in need of defending. The first was inclusive of all Jewish views, to the extent they were known in Eastern Europe at the turn of the Twentieth Century, The second made a heroic attempt to "prove" that what was being done in non-Hasidic parts of Poland and Russia was, in fact, the ultimate expression of Judaism. Other traditions were firmly rejected. One was widely accepted as the more scholarly for about half a century, but then was largely put aside in favor of the other. They were called, respectively, the Aruch HaShulchan and the Mishnah Berurah. The drama of the tension between the two, which is ongoing, will be my next topic.