Reply To: Whats wrong with chumros?

lavdavka – “I have another question if ones rav tells him he may do something that most, or even just some big gedilim say not to do. and the person dose it .If when the person goes to heaven after 120 and they say his rabbi is wrong is it considered that the person did the rite thing and he goes scot free or should he have been more careful”

I have often wondered this, and I assume that if somebody follows his rov he is doing the best he can, and will therefore not be punished. My question is does the rov get punished for all the things that people have done wrong because of his psak?

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Josh31 – “Are you talking about chumros for individuals to keep, or about stricter standards to be imposed upon the community?”

I was referring to chumros voluntarily kept by either individuals or communities. I think “imposing” chumros is obviously wrong, and was not meant to be the topic of this discussion.

“The down side of chumros is that they can drive many away from keeping Torah and Mitzvos… Further chumros can create divisions within the larger Jewish community.”

I don’t see why that should be the case if chumros are used correctly (kept for the right reasons and not imposed upon others).

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charliehall – “There is absolutely no merit to being machmir out of doubt.”

Raban Gamliel clearly disagrees with you.

“Being machmir out of doubt is a confession of ignorance or even laziness, neither of which are positive traits!”

Only in a case where there is a universally accepted psak, which you are ignorant of or too lazy to find out. However, there are many cases where there is no clear psak, with many poskim saying one way and many poskim saying the other. It is in this such case that there is an inyan to be machmir.

“And we must never insist that others follow our own chumrot; that is the height of arrogance.”

Agreed.

“Regarding following a rav who paskens a minority opinion, if you have a rav you should always follow him in his leniencies and his stringencies. And if you don’t have a rav you have not fulfilled the positive commandment in Avot… In comparison, the talmud has terrible things to say about people who shop around for opinions they like — it is a way to enable the yetzer hara, big time.”

I agree 100%. However, I doubt that your rov (or the gemora) will have a problem if he tells you that you can be makil in a certain case and you decide not to rely on his kulah. There is nothing wrong with following your rov’s chumros, but theres nothing wrong with being machmir either!

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oomis1105 – “My father O”H used to tell me that the biggest danger in Yiddishkeit is when people make the tafeil the ikkar and the ikkar is made tafeil.”

Yes, as mamashtakah pointed out chumros must not be mistaken as a chiyuv. But chumros in their correct place are still a wonderful thing.

“When the ikkar of halacha says something is muttar, and then someone comes along and decides to be machmir on something related to that halacha, something that there is no real halachic reason to do (like not wearing colored shirts), that is making something basically rather trivial into a be-all and end-all”

I do not believe there is any halachic basis for white shirts, only hashkafadic.

“Re: being machmir out of doubt – we always must ask a shailah when there is a doubt.”

As I explained to charliehall above, this is not the type of sufaik that I believe R’ Gamliel was referring to.

HaQer – “If someone is so machmir to wear a white shirt that he would rather wear a dirty, wrinkled, stained white shirt then a clean, pressed, blue one then we have a problem. He is clearly missing the point.”

That depends what he is trying to accomplish by wearing a white shirt. If it is to look chushav like a ben Torah should, then it would indeed make more sense to wear a clean colored shirt than a dirty white shirt. However, if the reason one is wearing a white shirt is to identify himself as a certain type of person (as is often the reason), then perhaps it would make more sense to wear a dirty white shirt than a clean colored shirt. Again, this is a hashkafic, not halachic, issue.

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lesschumras – “Let’s not forget that we re not in Gan Eden because of a chumra. Adom was told by Hashem to not EAT from the tree. When Adom told it over to Chava, he added a chumra, don’t TOUCH the tree. When the snake pushed her against the tree and noyhing happened, he was able to convince her to eat from it”

No, we’re not in Gan Eden because Adam did not tell Chava that not touching the tree was a chumra he had made, and therefore when Chava touched the tree and nothing happened she assumed nothing would happen if she ate from it either. So yes, as has been previously posted several times, we must not confuse chumros with etzem halacha. However, that does not mean that there is inherently anything wrong with chumros: quite the contrary, as I have shown in my first post.

Helpful – “Who makes chumros? Not Yankel Shoemacher. Chumros are set by Chazal, the Rishonim, the Achronim, the Gedolim! Who are we midgets to second guess these great men? We are specifically told to make gedorim.”

“Chumros” put on Klal Yisroel by the rishonim and achronim were not meant to be the subject of this discussion, seeing as they are halacha and, as you mentioned, impossible to argue with. I was talking about chumros when in doubt what thw halacha is, as I explained earlier in this post to charliehall.