Who Would Want to Keep Two Days of Yom Kippur?
A possible insight into the birth of the chumrah culture
I’ve written previously about my struggles understanding the status of the chumrah in halacha. In that article, I identified four categories of chumrah:
The decision, in a case where mainstream poskim disagree over a practice, to follow the stricter opinion.
The decision to enhance (מהדר) the observance of a mitzva by spending up to one-third more than the basic cost of a kosher item (like a sefer Torah or an esrog). Note that, based on the Gemara (Bava Kama 9b) there's no Divine reward of any type for costs incurred above 150% of the price of a kosher item.
The decision, based on עשית הישר והטוב (Devarim 6:18) to extend reasonable consideration to an individual who might not otherwise have a legal claim in matters of property ownership. Rashi characterizes this as going "לפנים משורת הדין."
The decision to abstain from otherwise permitted physical enjoyment so as not become a נבל ברשות התורה (in the Ramban's language).
As I noted in that earlier piece, the value of numbers three and four are obvious, while I could imagine only very limited justifications for numbers one and two.
I recently came across a discussion centered around the Tur (Orech Chaim 624) that doesn’t add a rationale to the practice, but certainly provides significant historical context.
Chasidim and men of action in Ashkenaz (Germany) would commonly observe two days of Yom Kippur, where they would fast both days. Sometimes, when there were ten of them, they would pray together as a minyan, completing the full order of Yom Kippur prayers on the 11th of the month.
The background to this chumrah obviously relates to the Talmud-based, universally-binding minhag (see Beitza 4b) for Jews outside of Israel to observe two days of each yom tov based on historical difficulties spreading rosh chodesh alerts. These chassidim felt that the underlying logic should also apply to Yom Kippur.
Nevertheless, as the Tur observes:
My father and master the Rosh rebuked them.
Not only did the Tur decline to support the practice, but he recorded a rare rebuke. And it wasn’t just the Rosh. For many reasons, this chumrah attracted widespread criticism among rabbinic leaders.
Apparently, proponents of the chumrah quoted a Gemara (Rosh Hashana 21a) where Rava was reported to have observed two days of Yom Kippur based on confusion over the correct calendar date. Similarly, in the Yerushalmi (Challah 1:1), בר אבוי דשמואל בר רב יצחק kept two days. Although the practice led to his death (see פני משה).
However as the Bais Yosef points out, those two sources come from an historical period when there was a genuine uncertainty about the calendar. By contrast, we currently observe two days of a normal Yom Tov in the context of minhag - and that minhag never extended to keeping two days of Yom Kippur.
I certainly can’t say I understand the rationale of this chumrah of the “Chasidai Ashkenaz” any better than the Tur, Rosh or Bais Yosef did. But it does seem likely that, from an historic perspective, their approach could mark an innovation in halachic observance. Perhaps for the first time, there was an impulse to latch on to rejected or even out-of-context halachic opinions just because they existed.
For whatever it’s worth, I definitely prefer the Tur, Rosh, and Bais Yosef on this one.
One more related point. Here’s how the Tur concludes his discussion:
And some say that someone who even one time observed two days for Yom Kippur would never be able to retract, since he had accepted the practice on himself, it now had the status of excision (כריתות). But my father and master the Rosh would allow them to retract.
The Bais Yosef identifies “some say” as the סמ”ק (Rabbi Yitzchak M’Korbeil). But how could anyone disagree with the Rosh here? How could adopting a chumrah with no source in Torah or Chazal possibly imbue the practice with a status any more binding than that of a neder (for which retraction is obviously possible)? And, in the absence of any Torah sources, where could כריתות come from?