Search

…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Judaism I. Old Testament 1. History of scholarship …

[German Version] I. Linguistics – II. Philosophy – III. Religious Studies – IV. Philosophy of Religion – V. Old Testament – VI. New Testament – VII. Church History – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam…

[German Version] (sg. minhag; from the Heb. נהג/ nhg, literally “use to do”). Since antiquity, in both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism (Judaism: II), the term denotes customs and traditions as practised in regions or communities, sometimes even in individual families and by religious authorities in any area of religious practice with respective particular features: inter alia in the ritual of prayers and the insertion of synagogue poetry ( piyyutim; Poetry: III, 2; Liturgy: VII), in food and purity regulations ( issur we-hetter), in ritual slaughter and meat inspection. Already in antiquity, minhagim played a great part in the decisions of the halakhah ( y. Peʿah 7:6; cf. b. Ber. 45a passim; y. Yebam. 12:1; y. B. Bat. 7:1). In Ashkenazi Judaism, the minhagim were so deeply rooted that they basically stood alongside the halakhah as customary law, and often acquired a binding authority even higher than that of the halakhah. In order to invest a minhag with halakhic authority it must be shown that it is widespread, often applied, and unambiguous. An attested minhag…