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I heard about someone who does reverse simanim.
They eat the tail so they shouldn’t be a rosh l’shualim, serve bitter and sour food so their enemies will taste bitterness and sour grapes, and do NOT eat carrots because it sounds like merin which sounds like maror which is bitter.
Also, they give their kids nuts because ???? the gematria of ?? and they want them to be inscribed in the ??? ?????.
Is there anything wrong with this?
I had someone come over on Rosh Hashana and ask me if I had to foods to give him so that he could fulfill the mitzvah of mosh loach manos.
They should cut off their nose so that they won’t cut off their nose to spite their face.
Syag
In truth, we do find reference to the sending of “Manos” in connection with Rosh Hashanah (see Nechemiah, Perek 8).
The following is excerpted from short vort dot com.
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i mean, its kinda kineged the minhagim of gantz klal yisrael. but you knew that.
thanx WIY. I liked that a lot better than what he tried to explain!
He actually spent quite a bit of time explaining why there is an obligation on R”H (and posssibly every YomTov). It had a lot about the Rambam, and other things but it got lost in the delivery. This is someone who used to be a top guy years ago and had a schizophrenic break (IIRC). He is now somewhat homeless and suffers from OCD in the form of observing Shabbos all week and pesach and sukkos all year round. I have no doubt they are all based on someones writings or opinions but I wonder if he doesn’t realize he has forgone the mainstream for the unusual, or if he does it just to be controversial. Would that be like real-life trolling?
Why should this be a problem? The most famous siman, apples and honey, isn’t even found in the Gemara or Shulchan Aruch- it’s a minhag cited by the Rema!
Rational frummie
The Rema is our shulchon aruch if you are of ashkenazic descent! You make it sound like “it’s just the Rema.”
WIY: You missed his point. He was saying you can make up Simanim and stuff because that’s what we’ve done throughout history. It’s not brought down in the Gemara or the most major of Rishonim but is still the centerpiece of the modern Leil Rosh Hashanah Seduah.
Sam2
But does that mean one can do the opposite of the simanim that are mentioned in the Rema?
Sam
There are inyanim to the ones brought down by the Rema and are all linked to pesukim as far as I recall. You can’t just do the opposite of the ones in the Rema because you found some cute remez.
WIY, sam is right. Even if the minhag of apples and honey is linked to a pasuk, it is still a pretty recent innovation only cited by the Rema. It’s not in the Gemara, Geonim, Rif, Rosh, Rambam, Tur, or Beit Yosef. Apples and honey are rooted in a very recent halachic tradition.
The fact that certain popular minhagim are so recent shows that you can be creative in this area. After all, why didn’t people criticize the Rema and say that he was being too modern by including apples and honey 400 years ago?
And that’s why we should blow Shofar on Chanuka — to remind us of Matan Torah.
WIY: Nope. See the Aruch Hashulchan on this. We don’t know HKBH’s Cheshbonos on these things. He told us that Simanim work for this, so we make them however we can. It’s weird, sure. And it is against the Minhag, as Toi says. But I see no reason why this wouldn’t work.
If I’m not mistaken the Tur says that Yidden have always added to the simanim.
Sam, well actually according to the Bach there is more to the Siman than what you say. If so, doing the opposite will have the opposite effect. It would be akin to annointing a king by a dried out river and saying he should kill his enemies. The Metzius is the Siman.
Sam
I wonder if the ones in shulchon aruch take on the power of a minhag.
WIY: Presumably not. As far as I’ve ever seen, people add their own (raisin and celery seems popular in America) and don’t do even close to all of the ones mentioned. Different Machzorim and school-handouts choose different Simanim to bring down. There are two Minhagim by what to say for carrots. I would assume that the Minhagim by Simanim are incredibly fluid. Very, very few (apples+honey and maybe pomegranate) are anywhere near universal.
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