Yesterday's post got me thinking. The world we live in
radically different than that of our ancestors. There are the technological
changes, like computers and airplanes, the resultant lifestyle changes, like
the lack of open fires in our homes, and the social changes, like the disappearance
of the aristocracy and the recognition
of women as men's social and legal equals.
The modern pace of change is unparalleled in history. Had
you taken a Roman citizen from 2000 years ago and dropped him in medieval Europe,
there would have been new things for him to marvel at, but the world was
similar enough to the one he was used to that he could have gotten along. Take someone
from the middle ages and bring him forward to today, and the world he finds
himself in is an unrecognizable magical place. Yet almost all halacha and
minhag developed before the world we live in existed, and reflects a world as
foreign to us as ours would be to the medieval time traveler.
What might our rituals and laws look like had they ossified
last Tuesday, instead of hundreds or thousands of years ago?
Today, biur chametz is an event, where individuals and communities
have a rare excuse to play with fire and build bonfires to burn their chometz. Yet
in the recent past, burning your chometz instead of, say, throwing it in the
river was a matter of convenience. Everyone had fireplaces in their home. It was much easier
to toss your chometz into the living room fire than to take it outside. Had the
minhag been set today, we'd probably flush our chometz down the toilet.
Lighting candles Friday night was initially done for light,
so that one wouldn't have to eat their Shabbos meal in the dark. Had the minhag
developed today, might women make a bracha before flipping the dining room
switch? Would we have a minhag to have a chandelier with one bulb for each
person in the family? If a woman forgot to turn on the light one week, might
she ever after need to have an extra bulb in the chandelier?
Telephones would have prevented the problems that saddled us
with two-day yomim tovim.
And so on…
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