As the title says, I'm wondering if its possible for a new minhag to become instituted almost like a law by the leading authorities of a community or whether all minhagim have to organically develop over time and simply become accepted like something that's simply "in the air" for the community. Basically, can a leader or a group of leaders get together and just come up with a new custom as long as it doesn't contradict anything in the Torah, tell everyone to follow it like a "law" so that the entire community thus decides to follow something (or its leaders 'force' it)? Would this contradict the law in the Torah that one may not add any new laws?
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judaism.stackexchange.com/a/18362/1362– rosendsCommented Jul 16, 2023 at 17:34
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@rosends Thank you. Of course, it still doesn't exactly answer whether its possible for someone to literally formally institute a new custom that becomes binding as the Rabbi in the reply you posted simply started doing something and others copied him, which would fall into the latter category that I described (that of organically developed customs). It would be different if the Rabbis got together and said "we dont like this X thing" and then they all said "Ok, we will not do it that way anymore as a custom", and everyone follows that. I appreciate the link though, it was interesting.– setszuCommented Jul 16, 2023 at 17:39
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One issue with the question is the possible meanings/levels of "minhag." Some are family practices, some are almost at the level of instituted law. They would have different sources.– rosendsCommented Jul 16, 2023 at 17:42
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@rosends Oh my bad, I didn't know there were different levels of "minhag". For this, I think I mean a minhag that is binding on an entire Jewish community in a certain town or neighbourhood, or just a synagogue community (minhag started by Rabbis/leaders of the community also). Certainly not at a level of family practice. But I'm not sure how to edit my question to clarify this since I'm not exactly aware of different levels of customs.– setszuCommented Jul 16, 2023 at 17:44
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Here is some writing I have done exploring the question rosends.blogspot.com/2017/04/… and rosends.blogspot.com/2017/05/… look at the comments for the second one for a link with more info– rosendsCommented Jul 16, 2023 at 18:25
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