Sometimes, a tradition isn't a tradition

Judaism is a complex combination of laws and practices and certain traditional practices have risen to the level of institutionalized practice on par with laws. But I believe that a significant number of certain types of minhagim are relics of a different culture and era.

This is not a groundbreaking idea even within orthodoxy. If one goes back to the rules for an attractive woman taken as a spoil of war, one might find an opinion that says that what the woman does to make herself unattractive depends on the societal standard of beauty at the time. If the practice of beauty is to lengthen them, she cuts her nails. If the accepted notion of beauty requires short nails, she grows them. Thus the applied practice is dependent on what society is like at any given time. There is a similar subjective standard for what is considered men or women’s clothing (thus prohibited to the other gender). The underlying goal is it maintain or subvert norms. How one gets there is immaterial and changeable.

I believe that there is a large category within minhag that is based in “inherent expression of religion” and a separate category which is based in “whatever it takes to reach a certain point.” When it comes to mourning, for example, sitting on the floor is inherently a way to demonstrate sadness. I am lowered. I am closer to the ground. But other practices are more simply ways to refocus the person based on what, at the time the rules were codified, would have gotten in the way of focusing on mourning.

Prime example – during the nine days, when we are more aware of the sadness of the loss of the temples, we do not do laundry. Is this because there is something inherently “mourning” about wearing dirty clothes or because of something else? Let’s think about what life was like 2000 years ago in terms of laundry. How many changes of clothes did people have? Probably not many. What did it take to clean clothes? A schlep down to the nearest river? Hard work beating rocks etc? Carrying wet clothes back and hanging them up – labor intensive and demanding of time. So when did someone give up the time to clean clothes? Before a holiday or other celebration (note how many holidays are marked by the practice of donning holiday clothes – this doesn’t mean buying a new wardrobe, but using something special and clean to mark the holiday). Because CLEAN clothes indicated celebration, someone in mourning should not put forth the energy to clean when one is in mourning. Clean clothes, themselves, are not the problem. Now that we are all delicate (an halachic status which is used to allow us to do things that, back in the day, people didn’t do) and now that we have many changes of clothes and doing the laundry is a matter of throwing things into a machine and walking away, the wearing of clean clothes is not reserved for (nor indicative of) any specific celebration or joyous mood. We do not live in the dust and dirt of 2000 years ago so clothes, after a bit of wearing, don’t necessarily show any deprivation. Maybe that tradition regarding laundry needs to be rethought.

It makes sense on a fast day not to eat because one emulates angels who don’t eat, because one deprives the self of the physical, because one should feel anguish. Pick your reason. But why abstain from meat and wine for the 9 days? Maybe it is because those are hallmarks of the sacrificial system which we lost at the temple’s destruction so not eating them is an inherent reminder of our loss. Of course, grain products and oil are also part of the sacrificial offerings and yet we don’t eliminate them from our diets during this time. Maybe it is because those are the foods closely related to celebration (because of cost and scarcity and time required to prepare). Now that food prep time, energy and cost are lower and we have different senses of what place foods have in our lives, maybe that practice of abstaining from meat is outdated. Popping chicken nuggets into the microwave (its own crime against the culinary world) so that one can eat something quick is not the same as schechting, preparing and cooking a cow for a large group of people.

There are valid sociological reasons for certain practices. They reflect that communal standards and expectations that developed at a certain time and place. Why don’t Ashkenazic Jews eat kitniyot? Because at a certain time and in a certain place, there were concerns about confusing them with other grains, or because their preparation made them look like other things. But that time is past. We have more control over the growing and storing of crops and we have found ways to make foods that look and taste like other foods so the notion of “confusion” is not nearly as strong. Maybe what should determine the continuation of traditional practices should be its continued reflection either of the application of specific religious ideals, or its relationship to the larger world as it tries to remove those things that get in the way of religious ideals.

I’m not advocating the wholesale loss of minhagim. I’m recommending that we look at our minhagim and decide which is inherently an expression of religious intent, and which is a means towards a religious goal and that means might have shifted over time.