Reply To: Milchig Meal on Shavuos

Little, in one sentence you pointed out where we don’t see eye to eye: “Staying up on Shavuos night is NOT a halacha. It is a minhag.”

You take a minhag yisroel and treat it like the custom of eating gefilte fish with chrein, while I know that
“מנהג ישראל תורה היא” (the holy words of Tosfos, מנחות 20b. That a minhag is not “just a minhag” but it is TORAH!!

That is where we diverge!

You seem to think that halacha is important, but a mere minhag, feh, it can be trampled on, while I know that a minhag Yisroel is stronger than halacha, as halacha itself rules; “מנהג עוקר הלכה”

Yom Tov Sheini is a “minhag” too. Do you teat it less than halacha too?!

Staying up on Shavuos is a MINHAG YISROEL. It is not optional for someone to deide if h will or won’t follow this minhag.

You mentioned Rav Eliyashiv z”l. a godol hador. Of course if someone is a choleh (ill, including elderly etc), dispensation is extended even on certain Hilchos Shabbos, but c”v for a healthy person to transgress on a shvus d’shvus, or amira l’akum – because a certain godol was allowed to do something when he was ill! Likewise if he has a dispensation from staying up Shavuos, is that a blanket hetter to discard minhag yisroel?!

This is elementary, not some advanced talmudic discourse. Or as said: p’shita, “my ko mashma lon” (it is obvious, what is new in what she is saying?)

As far as לפנים משורת הדין – there are standards which frum yidden keep. In kashrus we keep glatt kosher, and we do not use non-glatt meat. If someone frum uses non-glatt, that person is being MEIKIL from the standard practice of frum yidden, and indeed is “less than”! There are thousands of such “standards”, including dress codes of what is acceptable and what is “less than”.

The problem I am shining my light on, and making people uncomfortable, is that many feel they are super-frum in sooo many areas. They live comfortably in this frummie bubble of superiority while slamming other frum yidden that have customs of not doing xyz (e.g. sleep in sukka, eat cake before davening etc).

Yet, if I come and point my pin at their frummie bubble, showing them plenty of areas of being meikil or even going outright against halacha (as in Heicha kedusha), they freak and get bent out of shape, justifying, rationalizing and battling to remain on their frum perch which is being shaken.

That is what this is all about. Are we really frum or do we just think we are frum because “those guys” don’t keep the chumra that I do?!