the"naturalization" of minhag and the expansion of halakhah, so too can conversation between rabbi and ritual committee be a source of religious growth and development in a congregation. All that is required is a laity willing to examine its customs openly and honestly, a rabbi able to interpret Torah in all its fullness and intricacy, and a readiness on all sides to teach and learn from each other.
Notes
1. This factor is not limited to liberal congregations. Numerous"orthodox" synagogues of a previous generation resolved knotty ritual controversies--such as the battle over mixed seating--by submitting them to a vote of the membership rather than to the binding halakhic decision of the rabbi.
2. On the"legal sources of Jewish law," see the comprehensive treatment by Menachem Elon , Hamishpat Ha-Ivri, Jerusalem , 1978. His discussion of minhag is found on pp. 713-767.
3. To be legally obligatory, a minhag must be"a common practice, performed frequently,”(Isserles , Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat 331.1), and officially declared by the community's scholars to be the accepted practice(Arukh Hashulhan, Hoshen Mishpat 331#5).
4. See the rules and qualifications discussed in R. Haim Hizkiah Medini, S’dei Hemed, V. 4, pp. 74-109.
5. On the relationship between jus cogens and jus dispositivum in Jewish law, see Elon, op.cit., pp. 158-163. The right to stipulate against the rules of monetary law in the Torah was developed during the Tanaitic period and accepted by the Amoraim ; see M. Ketubot 9.1, Tosefta Qidushin 3.7-8, Ketubot 83b-84a; Rambam , Yad, Ishut 12.6-9. within these lines, a commercial minhag is a form of community stipulation which annuls conflicting Toraitic prescriptions; see M. Baba Metzia 7.1 and the accompanying sugyd in the Yerushalmi.
119