Mesorah exchange between communities

Question

Based on this thread

What exactly prevents Ashkenazim from accepting Mesorah from other communities on things that we have not done in our own community?

For example, what is it about the Mesorah of the Yemenites on locusts, as in the above linked thread, that precludes us from just accepting it? Just because we haven't seen it? Clearly this shows their Mesorah is stronger than ours (argumentative tone intended for effect, not actually to be argumentative)!

Taking an extreme reverse example, can Yemenites marry into Ashkenazi families, trusting the Mesorah that the Ashkenazim are in fact Jewish?

Ultimately, are we just insecure? Is it that we have some (perceived) majority status? Is there something else - a fundamental principle - that I'm failing to see?

Other similar examples:

"Morrocan Jews eat swordfish."

"Regarding birds, it is clear from the Shach and Aruch Hashulchan that one can rely on the Mesora from another community. But does the same halacha apply to chagavim? There was no uniform answer on this. Many of the Ashkenazi participants asked their own poskim and received divergent answers. While many rabbis ruled against eating, some of the leading poskim in Yerushalaim gave the green light to rely on the Yemenite tradition and eat chagavim." // (Thanks, Isaac Moses.)

Answer 1

In response to your first question of why Ashkenazim don't accept things from other Mesorahs: Simply because if it's not part of our Mesorah, we don't do it.

Mesorah is the most precious thing a Jew can have. It is our connection to the generations before us, to Sinai, and to Hashem Himself. It is our job to preserve this gift, this jewel, and to live by it to our utmost abilities. We mustn't change our Mesorah even if other things seem to make more sense. Because if you start taking a little bit from Ashkenazim and then from Chassidus and then from Sefardim, you'll be left with nothing, for two reasons:

1. Your own Mesorah, your connection to Har Sinai and God, will have changed. By changing your Mesorah, you are actually replacing it with something that has zero validity and legitimacy, hence you have nothing.
2. Like a good Jew I'll give you a mashul. If someone is a yellow belt in five styles of karate, he has nothing. If he learns a little bit from here and then from there and then from somewhere else, he'll never master anything, and he won't have anything concrete. Similarly, if you pick and choose from different Mesorahs you'll end up with a conglomerate of nothing.

There is no such thing as a "better" Mesorah. There can be many LEGITIMATE Mesorahs passed down by great people. The fact that they are different is not a problem either, it is natural for there to be differences over time. Our job is to follow our Mesorah, and our teachers, until we master it and pass it on to our children.
I am not saying to have blind faith—that's not anyone's Mesorah. Ask away; that's what Judaism is all about. But it has to be balanced with respect for the Gedolim and any transmitter of your valid Mesorah. With the proper intellectual honesty and balance, the truth can be attained.

May Hashem grant us all Beracha and Hatzlacha in our search for the emes.

Answer 2

The Rema (Yoreh Deah 64.7) writes that we are unable to do proper examinations on what is forbidden fat and where the fats end. The Mechaber makes no statement about it, and we assume that Sephardim are experts. I know for a fact that HaRav Machpud of Yerushalayim is an expert in treibering (nikor) and can tell you precisely where the fats are and where they end.

The Rema says we are not expert. So its pretty clear that while Sephardim have the Mesorah, Ashkenazim, do not, and therefore cut a cow/sheep/goat etc. differently. This doesn't make anyone better or more stringent. It is simply a reality of how our poskim have shaped our interaction with Halacha. The Rema is one of the greatest Ashkenazi poskim. Many are direct and indirect descedents of himself and his family.

Since Ashkenazim in general do not consider themselves expert in matters of precise determination of halachic definitions, we tend to refrain from matters that require that precision. So when it comes to locusts, since Ashkenazim do not have a Masora, we don't regard ourselves as experts in that area, and hence refrain from accepting the Masora. That doesn't negate the masora for Temanim. However it seems from the שו"ת משנה הלכות חלק טז סימן ח that their mesora is not based on a halachic presumption, but rather from what they know their forefathers ate. In this case then, since they themselves are not expert in their own masora, but rather are simply expert in what their forefathers ate, we cannot rely on their Mesorah. However, when it comes to our own Masora, we do not have the halachic authority and expertise to simply permit or allow aspects of the Masora to change.

Answer 3

This answer will not be sourced, it is completely opinion based.

As the author has noticed, nearly every other Jewish community is willing to trust the mesorah of the Ashkenazi community while Ashkenazim in general reject the mesorah of everyone else. Therefore things that are technically problematic to halakha/mesorah of most other Jewish communities are brought in despite the problems because they want to be accepting of Ashkenazi mesorah. An example of this would be Challah (sweet varieties), which is a bread that is technically mezonot according to Sepharadi and Yemenite Halakha. Yet despite this bread's problematic status many Sepharadim have started using it. Not only that, times when I have hosted Ashkenazim for Shabbat and tried to make hammotzi on pita or lavash has led to problems since the Ashkenazim were unsure if they could even make hammotzi on a bread that wasn't "challah" for Shabbat, requesting that I provide challah for them. As someone who makes matzah himself (which is called soft matzah) I run into a problem every year of certain Ashkenazi friends who are unsure if they can eat in my house during Pesah since I make/eat "soft matzah." This tendency of Ashkenazim silently expecting their mesorah to be accepted everywhere while remaining resistant to anyone else's mesorah can be felt in outside of food as well. Ashkenazim as a whole will refuse to adopt chet and ayin from Sepharadim and Yemenites while at the same time tell their own people they can't adopt other pronunciations because the vowels aren't as authentic as Ashkenazi mesorah. Oddly enough, proper pronunciation of the consonants is passed down in the halakha from our earliest sources, vowels are not (Megillah 24b). Ashkenazim in general also spend little time understanding other Jewish communities in any meaningful way, tending to lump all other Jews into the category of "Sfardi." This is shocking not only because the word is "Sefaradi" but because many other communities are not actually Sephardic. This issue only occurs amongst Ashkenazim but because every other Jewish community is sensitive to these distinctions. A great example of an Ashkenazi Rabbi doing this in the midst of a Semikha program can be seen here. In the video you can see the Rabbi call his guest a "Sefardi" and the guest has to correct him to say he's actually a Yemenite, and when this guest talks about Sefaradim he always uses the term Sefaradim/Sefaradi. These issues bleed into the realms of Jewish education in the US. We are starting to hear the stories of Sephardic children who grew up going Jewish school, only to experience teachers who know they are Sephardic but force them to disregard Sephardic practice anyways.

The person asking the question asked if it's possible that Ashkenazim are just insecure. An insecure person is often described as someone who delegitimizes others to make themselves feel more secure. Based on the behaviors described for individuals who are insecure, it appears that Ashkenazim as a whole are insecure. Sefaradim and Yemenites have even coined a term describing the trend for Ashkenazim to feel that their Jewish experience defines what Judaism is while at the same time dismissing the authenticity of other forms of Judaism: Ashkenormative or Ashkenormativity.

Having said all that. This is clearly not the case for all Ashkenazim. Just like there are Ashkenazi Rabbis who permit following the mesorah of other Jews, there are Ashkenazim who are very aware of Judaism outside of their own received tradition. This answer is not an attempt to attack Ashkenazim, but rather to highlight an issue that is starting to be noticed on a large scale in hopes we can have a productive response to it.