As we plough through yet another year of Ashkenazi humrot and the self-denial of not touching corn, rice, pulses and apparently, now also quinoa, it is worth reflecting that not all humrot are accomplished in the doing. Some are even achieved by abstaining from a mitzvah – and some even have ancoent Ashkenazim and Ashkenazic traditions as their target.
Hol Hamoed Tefilin – The State of Orthodoxy in Microcosm
A guest post by PhilAs we plough through yet another year of Ashkenazi humrot and the self-denial of not touching corn, rice, pulses and apparently, now also quinoa, it is worth reflecting that not all humrot are accomplished in the doing. Some are even achieved by abstaining from a mitzvah – and some even have Ashkenazim and Ashkenazic traditions as their target.
Humrot sometimes have a special illogicality all of their own, building fence upon fence around mitzvot so that the original intention ends up so fenced-in that we no longer see what the original intention was. Hence, sesame seeds, hence peanuts, hence oil derivatives of kitniot and the famous quinoa – so not European and so not remotedly close to a biological definition of kitniot. Over a century ago, someone tried to ban potatoes in Poland and nearly got away with it but for the local community who refused to turn the joyous liberation of Pesach into the hurban of Tisha Be’Av.
By far the worst manifestation of the kitniot cult however has been the move among some Sephardim – thinking that it makes them frummer – to abandon their centuries-old tradition and halacha and to cease eating rice or kitniot on Pesach. A clear example of frumkeit based on tradition trumping tradition based on halacha.
Many of us, European Jews of today and yesterday, will well remember the days when the absolute norm and practice of Ashkenazi Jews was to don tefilin on the intermediate days - Hol Hamoed – of Pesach and Succot, removing them either just before Hallel or even earlier, after the kedusha of shacharit. Our forefathers had always donned tefilin, following centuries of practice well founded upon normative halacha and equally importantly, of logic. Gradually though, and eating away at our long-held practice, we can see more and more people choosing no longer to wear tefilin on Hol Hamoed on the erroneous and dangerous “frummer than thou” principle so sadly endemic to today’s Judaism. On that ebbing away of this normative Ashkenazi practice, more later, but for the time being, let’s look at some sources.
Firstly, the source of sources, the Torah. In the Book of Leviticus (Vayikra, Parshat Emor) which deals with the practical, rather than the cultic or agricultural nature of the Jewish festivals, and which we read in the synagogue on the second days of Pesach and Succot, there is a clear description of the sabbatical nature of the first and last days of the two festivals, namely, that all manner of work is forbidden. No reference whatsoever is made to the intermediate days and certainly, it is illogical to inference that the Torah intended Hol Hamoed as a non-work semi yomtov. In fact, there is no question that non-working humrot as applied to Hol Hamoed are later rabbinic innovations and not from the Torah itself.
How do we know that Hol Hamoed wasn’t a day for shtreimels and fancy bekishers, of people taking a full seven – or eight day break from work? Well, we know it directly from the section in Parshat Emor which falls between the sections telling us about the festivals of Pesach and Succot. Because at the heart of the Pesach festival is the annual barley harvest and on the day after first day yomtov, (mimahorat hashabbat) the barley harvest continued and the first omer was cut. Jews of the time were out in the fields harvesting barley and as anybody familiar with the agricultural cycle of Israel is well aware, those who weren’t growing barley were certainly growing other things at this time of year and you can bet that they were also out in the fields. Hol Hamoed was a work day at full pelt – all the more so since they had lost time over yomtov itself and the preparations for Pesach. (They were also playing around with barley and probably wheat as well right in the middle of Pesach but that’s another discussion.) In short, Hol Hamoed wasn’t holiday time, it was high velocity round the clock getting the harvest in.
Those familiar with the prohibition of using new grain (hadash) will know that the halacha takes the 17/18th of Nissan as the cut off point from new to old. Jews were evidently harvesting grain on the 17th and 18th of Nissan – on Hol Hamoed.
There is a legitimate argument largely among the rishonim based on discussions in the Talmud of what constitutes an ot, a sign, of yomtov. Without over-complicating this, not eating hametz or benching lulav and etrog could or could not be interpreted as an ot meaning that the necessity for another ot – donning tefilin – would or would not be necessary. Since both those mitzvoth are performed on Hol Hamoed, if you accept those as ot, then there should not be tefilin donned on Hol Hamoed. Another ot though is not working, observing a holiday for religious purposes, and we have seen that Jews in the Land of Israel for thousands of years did clearly work on Hol Hamoed.
Our normative halacha comes from later sources, principally, the work of Rabbi Yosef Caro in the Shulchan Aruch and its Askenazic embellishment, the Remor, Rabbi Moshe Isserles of Krakow in Poland. The two works were written largely simultaneously, the former authoritative for Sephardim and the latter for Ashkenazim. One of the principal differences in the two works is that Caro is heavily influenced by Kabbalistic thinking and it imparts on his halachic reasoning. Isserles is greatly influenced by his surroundings. He is bound not just by what the Jews should do but also by what the Jews actually practically do.
Isserles was well aware that Jews were working on Hol Hamoed and that it wasn’t yomtov and his view is that his Jews – the Ashkenazim – should don tefilin on Hol Hamoed with the proviso that they should either not recite the bracha or say it quietly out of respect for those rishonim and Talmudic sources who held the opposite view. From the views of most Ashkenazic acharonim who followed him, putting on tefilin on Hol Hamoed was normative practice. It is clearly the view of the Mishne Brura. If your great grandfather wasn’t hassidic or Sefardi, you can bet he put on tefilin on Hol Hamoed. And indeed, a generation ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find a non-Hassidic Ashkenazi synagogue in the US or Europe where tefilin wearing was not the absolute norm on Hol Hamoed – before, of course, most of the congregation headed off to work.
So where does the other tradition come from among some Ashkenazim to not put on tefilin? Primarily, it comes from the hassidic tradition which uses as its base the kabbalistic view of G-d donning different parts of the tefilin at different times and the need to copy/compensate for this behaviour on Hol Hamoed. One proto-hassidic source suggests that putting on tefilin on Hol Hamoed is even punishable by death, a view slammed by the Italian halachist Luzatto as completely ridiculous and positively dangerous. The same kabbalistic source is also the basis of the practice in Israel where tefilin are almost universally not worn on Hol Hamoed even among Ashkenazim. Most minhagim for Ashkenazim (minhag eretz yisrael) were instituted by disciples of the Vilna Gaon in the 18th century. There is a mistaken view that the Gaon strongly rejected the learning of Kabalah which was his principal objection to the Hassidim. In fact, the Gaon was a great kabalist himself and his objection to the hassidim was that they chose to diffuse the kabalah to the masses (often without the necessary background or mitzvah observance of those to whom it was being diffused.) His select band of disciples who made it to Eretz Yisrael were also kabbalists and carried on his practice of not wearing tefilin. The Gaon however, never tried to institute the practice in his own community. Vilna Jews wore tefilin on Hol Hamoed.
Today though, a rejection of donning tefilin on Hol Hamoed is reflective of something far removed from Halacha. As Orthodox synagogues in the Diaspora strive to get frummer and frummer, so Hol Hamoed becomes almost yomtov and rabbis frown upon those who work – as generations of Jews did and as the Torah recognised and even instructed. Studying full-time has also become the norm among many groups of hareidim with work an accepted necessity rather than a holy act. Sheshet Yamim Taaseh Melacha is also part of the Torah. Perversely, those studying at kollelim don’t study on Hol Hamoed, it’s general holiday time. So off come the tefilin.
And as many Orthodox congregations take on Chabad rabbis, one of the first minhagim of the shul that goes is the tefilin. The rabbi refuses to wear them, his BT disciples follow him and those who don tefilin on Hol Hamoed are perceived as less frum.
But to be part of a full society requires work and interacting with others, both frowned upon by
Hareidi society. For those fortunate to work in certain professions, and I am one of them, it is not difficult to take off for two days yomtov. Moreover, it is what our forefathers have done for generations and centuries. It is part of our tradition and Pesach is more than anything the continuing of the chain down the generations linking us with our past to guarantee our future as Jews.
I and many other Modern Orthodox Jews may question the two-day yomtov and the non-eating of kitniot but it is an authentic part of our tradition and it is the way we have always done Pesach. But there is a way we have always done Hol Hamoed as well and it too is an authentic part of our tradition. It too is special but it is not yomtov. If the practice continues of trying to make Hol Hamoed yomtov, all yomim tovim will be less accessible to most Jews and we will all be the losers.
A Gut Moed (not yomtov)