February 3, 2009

Ashkenazic Woman's Adoption of Her Sephardic Husband's Customs

Today’s question came from Paris, where the Jewish population tilts Sephardic. The questioner reported that a young woman from his congregation, who follows her parents’ Ashkenazic practices, was about to marry a young man who followed his parents’ Sephardic customs. After the marriage takes place, what rules will apply to the young woman in those areas where Ashkenazic and Sephardic practice diverge, as reflected in disputes between the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema? For instance, is she to recite a b’racha before performing a time-dependent positive commandment? May she eat kitniyot on Pesach?

Rabbi Kermaier noted that, although women are exempt from time-bound positive commandments, Ashkenazic women nevertheless recite a b’racha before performing such mitzvot (e.g., taking the arba minim). Sephardic women generally do not recite a b’racha, following the reasoning of the Shulchan Aruch that it is not accurate for a woman to say that she has been commanded to perform the mitzvah. The Rema, defining Ashkenazic practice, reasons that the woman, though exempt from performing the mitzvah, still receives reward for doing so, and therefore is in the category of the mitzvah and the b’racha.

The teshuva from Kollel Eretz Hemdah made three points:

(1) Generally speaking, a woman should follow her husband’s customs. Footnote 1 identifies three rationales:

(a) Husband and wife are considered one unit, and it’s appropriate to have one custom for the household (citing the Tashbetz (1361-1444)).

(b) She is in the same category as a person who moves permanently to a new community and thus follows its customs (citing Rav Moshe Feinstein (1895-1986)). Rabbi Kermaier noted that, traditionally, Jews did not follow family customs but rather community customs. These days, we do not typically have regional customs, but Rav Hershel Schachter has nevertheless ruled that a person who moves permanently into a community that has a unified custom on how long to wait after eating meat before consuming dairy should follow that unified custom, regardless of whether it is stricter or more lenient than his prior custom.

(c) This is a way to maintain shalom bayit.

(2) Turning to our question, the teshuva makes three individual points:

(a) The Ashkenazic woman remains authorized to perform time-bound positive commandments and it is desirable that she do so.

(b) While it is customary among Ashkenazim for woman to recite a b’racha before performing such a mitzvah, there is no unified custom among Sephardim. Typically, Sephardic women do not recite a b’racha, but there are communities in which they do. (Footnote 4 cites the Sephardic communities in Israel, Baghdad, and parts of Morocco.) Therefore, Rav Shaul Yisraeli (1910-95) ruled that Sephardic women who wish to make a b’racha may do so. It follows that the Ashkenazic woman in Paris is not required to change her custom, and may continue to recite a b’racha.

(c) She is allowed to eat kitniyot on Pesach and does not need to undergo hatarat nedarim in connection with this change in her practice, even though longstanding practices are generally treated as vows. On the other hand, she retains the right to be more stringent on herself and forego kitniyot, even if that was not her parents’ custom. If she does accept a stringency upon herself, she should explicitly state at the outset that this is being done without a vow (b’li neder).

(3) The woman begins to practice her husband’s customs only after the wedding. Therefore, the Ashkenazic woman would fast on her wedding day, though that is not the Sephardic practice.

As a gloss on this teshuva, Rabbi Kermaier quoted from the sefer Ish V’Ishto for the Sephardic perspective, as stated by Rav Ovadiah Yosef in Chazon Ovadiah. He said that an Ashkenazic woman who marries a Sephardic man may cook kitniyot for her husband even if her practice is not to eat them. If she wants, she may abandon her parents’ customs in favor of her husband’s. (Rabbi Kermaier said that he has also heard from Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg that a wife’s adoption of her husband’s customs is voluntary.) He takes this view with respect to all Ashkenazic-based stringencies. He further says that if a Sephardic woman marries an Ashkenazic man, she ought not to cook kitniyot for herself at home, but she may eat kitniyot in her parents’ home or that of another Sephardi, on the grounds that the land of Israel is the domain of the Shulchan Aruch. (Presumably, then, the rule would be different in France.) The author of Ish V’Ishto questions this reasoning, since Rav Ovadiah Yosef had agreed with Rav Moshe that the woman who marries is like someone who moved to a new community, so arguably she should have to accept the customs of her husband’s family. Also, it is questionable whether the Land of Israel has one custom for anything, especially insofar as entire communities made aliyah together and maintained their customs from the old country.