My chosen community--like every community, I suppose--has its own body of distinctive minhagim, horaos, chumras, hiddurim, and normative halachas. All, including the hiddurim, are observed with a high degree of commitment by a substantial cohort who see this as a matter of loyalty and love. People do not tend to deviate from them because of travel, convenience, or the minhag hamakom.
But I am trying to learn more about the halachos of yuhara, according to which it seems that it may be forbidden to go above and beyond the basic halacha in public if others are not doing the same.
From here it seems that in at least one case, a non-Torah-scholar may do an "extra" practice in public as long as all the Torah scholars and some of the balabatim are doing it. And from the Rema cited here, he may do an "extra" something if he is involved in "prishus and chassidus" in general. Of course, he may (must?) do what is correct l'chatchila even if others are doing only b'dieved or less. Other deviations from the norm, however, would seem to be discouraged.
Is it really yuhara to keep, say, your kashrus standards all the time? I read a source saying that not drinking cholov stam is not yuhara, perhaps because this "act" is completely passive. But when it's a matter of requiring CY keilim--or, very complicated, refusing the meat of your Satmar Shabbos hosts--you are going to stick out. And yet I can't imagine allowing or requiring yeridah in a matter like kashrus just because "other people are doing it."
What is a general guideline for what types of practices are doche and not doche hilchos yuhara? (Personal hachlatos/nedarim/chazakos? Things that you have genuine spiritual pleasure from, or a strong spiritual need to do? Communal and family minhagim? Explicit directives of the religious leader(s) of your community? Rulings of the poskim of your community? Chumras which everyone in your community keeps?) I'd appreciate "canonical" sources if they exist.
Related: When should one change one's Minhag with one's Makom (and when should one not)?
Chaba''d doesn't follow minhag hamakom?
No comments:
Post a Comment