The Sephardi Perspective: The edicts of separation

This week Rav Yitzhak Yosef, the son of Rav Ovadia Yosef, ruled that the Ashkenazi custom of a newly married couple going to a Heder Yichud (private room) after the Huppa is 'ugly' and 'vulgar'. Chastising Sephardi yeshiva students who have taken on Ashkenazi customs, Rabbi Yosef junior noted that "they are acting in an inappropriate manner".

This presents many issues for the Sephardim about how strictly one should adhere to one's customs and forsake anything else. I note the irony of a Rabbi who dresses in a garb reminiscent of Eastern Europe telling other Sephardim that they should not act according to Ashkenazi customs.

When I was in the lead up to my own wedding a few years ago I struggled with this issue. My wife is Ashkenazi and she wanted certain customs that were part of her heritage and that she was used to witnessing amongst her family and friends. She did not want us to see each other for the seven days preceding the wedding and we had a Bedecken (a 'veiling') as well as Heder Yichud after the Huppa. The rest of my wedding ceremony was conducted according to Sephardi tradition.

Even today, there are discussions between us about whether she can cover her hair with a sheitl or 'fall' which is not allowed in the Sephardi custom (a sheitl is a wig and a fall is an English word for a wig that doesn't have a fringe, so a woman wears a headband or scarf at the front so as not to show the separation line). We keep our home life according to Sephardi custom but it is very hard for my wife to negate a couple of decades of doing something one way and then having to learn and acknowledge another.

Regular readers of this column will know very well how hard I fight for a continuity in Sephardi customs in an increasingly Ashkenazicized Jewish world. I have rallied against the diluting of our customs in the face of a world which largely considers only Ashkenazi customs as 'normal'.

From the other side there are many talkbackers who declare my writing divisive and declare that we should be all one people with no separation. These people are always reluctant to declare what customs we should follow is this new unifying Judaism. I suspect, more often that not, they mean we Sephardim should give in and follow Nusah Ashkenaz or the almost identical Nusah Sepharad.

I personally believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle. We should hold steadfastly onto our customs and heritage but should not negate the Ashkenazi way of conducting Judaism. If we do not then we are no better than those who readily dismiss our customs. A home should have one set of customs, but if something is not contrary to a certain tradition then I believe we can make room for it. This is the strength of the Sephardi tradition.

Take any Sephardi book of halachot, including the Yalkut Yosef edited by Rav Yitzhak Yosef himself, and you will find the halacha according to both the Sephardi and Ashkenazi tradition. We should follow our own tradition but be aware of the other traditions and learn from them. It should be incumbent on Ashkenazi arbiters of halacha to do the same.

Interestingly, Rav Ovadia Yosef laments the fact that Ashkenazim in Israel have chosen to maintain their Ashkenazi practices instead of acknowledging that the Rambam and Rav Yosef Karo are the halachic authorities of Eretz Yisrael. Rav OvadiaYosef reluctantly yields to the practice of Ashkenazim in Israel to maintain their traditional customs.

The halacha of Eretz Yisrael was always according to the Sephardi authorities, but when the Ashkenazim arrived in significant numbers, the halachic arbiters allowed them to keep their own different customs. The community in Israel can be compared to a Jewish home where the custom is one matter, but someone is used to acting in a different manner. This demonstrates that one can reluctantly include practices that are alien to a community for the sake of a familial tradition.

Perhaps both communities must yield a little with the advent of so many 'mixed' families. We no longer live in communities where there was one minhag and there certainly has not been such a meeting of the two largest ethnic groups in Judaism as there is today.

There is undoubtedly a fine line between yielding to the customs of another and diluting one's own traditions, while making the important distinction between minhag (tradition) and halacha. However, I do not feel that we should recoil at the thought of allowing certain traditions that do not necessarily negate our own. This would do much to satisfy both extremes in the existential question about the Judaism we keep in Israel and breaking down the barriers of separation.