30 May ASHKENAZIM VS. SEPHARDIM.

Coming off the exalted
Yom Tov of Shavuot,
which commemorates
the special day of
receiving the holy
Torah in Mt. Sinai
from Hashem;
one might come to ponder how the Torah
branched off from one single unifying text
to rulings so different as seen between
Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
After our nation was exiled from its land,
we were scattered to different places in
the world. Some were exiled to Europe
while others to Spain and the countries in
the Middle East. The distance between the
places had a great impact on their culture,
language, genetics, food, and nuances of
prayer.
For the last 1,000 years the Jewish people
have, for the most part, been divided into
two main groups: Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
Contemporary Ashkenazim are European
Jews and descendants of Yiddish-speaking
Jews. Sephardim originate in the Iberian
Peninsula and the Arabic lands. Although
in this generation, those differences

are rapidly fading as Ashkenazim and
Sephardim mostly live together and their
children go to the same schools. Many even
marry each other, having children that are
Sephardi from one side and Ashkenazi from
the other.
One of the differences between the two
groups which is still very relevant today is
the way each follows their halacha.
Many of those differences developed due to
the Psakim of the Rabbis which they follow,
mostly the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema
(though there are many more differences
as well, but that is beyond the scope of this
article). The Sephardim follow the rulings
of Rabbi Yosef Karo in the Shulchan Aruch,
and Ashkenazim follow Rabbi Moshe
Isserlish in the Rema.
Let’s first try to understand how each of
those two giants arrived at their respective
psakim.
When one learns Gemara, he would usually
begin learning the words of the text with
the interpretation of Rashi, as it is almost
impossible to understand the Gemara
without the guidance of Rashi. After

learning the words of Rashi, one
usually continues with learning
the Tosfot and other Rishonim
like the Rosh, Rif, Rambam,
Rashba, Ramban and others.
The question one needs to ask is
whether those Rishonim wrote
their rulings L’ehalacha or did
they just write an interpretation
to the Gmara but didn’t mean
that it should be the way one
should rule as Halacha Le’maase.
אגרות משה אה״ע ח״ד) Feinstein Moshe Rav
א אות פג סימן (‘says that the Shulchan Aruch
and the Rema argued over those points,
as the Shulchan Aruch understood that
most of the Rishonim didn’t write a clear
Halacha since their main objective was to
interpret the Gemara by asking questions
on the Gemara’s difficulties and answering
them, with the exception of three Rishonim,
whose main objective was to give a
clear, definitive ruling on each topic: the
Rambam, the Rif and the Rosh. Therefore,
the Shulchan Aruch ruled according to those
three Rishonim over others. The Rema, on
the other hand, felt that although all other
Rishonim wrote many questions and
answers to reconcile the difficulties of
the Gemara, but those were not done
without a Halachic purpose; rather those
answers were geared towards Halacha,
and therefore they can be counted that
way as well:
Still this answer is not complete, as the
Rema himself said in his introduction
that he wrote his essay because he
disagreed on Rabbi Karo, who ignored
the principle that whenever latter
commentaries conclude differently than
the earlier commentaries, we follow the
latter ones. The reason being that since
the latter Poskim saw what the earlier
Poskim wrote and still decided to rule
differently than them, we therefore must
assume that they took that knowledge
into account and still decided that the
Halacha should be different.
The Rema argued that Rabbi Karo didn’t
follow that principle, therefore he saw
that he must write his ruling accordingly.
As we see, the Shulchan Aruch restricted
his ruling to only three poskim, while
the Rema on the other hand saw more
widely to include all Poskim as well.
This system seemed to change later in
history, as the Psak of the later Sephardi
Poskim differ from their Ashkenazi
contemporaries on this very point.
The Ben Ish Chai writes that the

Ashkenazi Poskim way is to look only at
what the earlier Poskim, the Rishonim, wrote
without opening the works of contemporary
Poskim, implying that the Sephardi Poskim
did search in many contemporary books to
see if they can find something which they
didn’t think of in order to apply it to their
ruling:
Another very basic difference in the Psak is
based on the Machloket between Pshat and
Kabbala.
The Bet Yosef wrote (קמא סימן (that the
Zohar overrides the ruling of the Poskim:
on the contrary, the Rema argued that we
follow the Poskim over the Zohar: The Bet
Yosef explained (כה‘ סי או״ח (that in reality
any Posek who says differently than the
Zohar, is only doing so because he didn’t
see the Zohar’s opinion, but if they would
have seen the Zohar, surely, they would
change their mind and rule in accordance
with the Zohar. The reason the Poskim
didn’t see what the Zohar says is because
the Zohar was hidden for about 1500 years
since Rabbi Abba wrote all those wonderful
secrets that were given to him by Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yochai.
Later poskim followed this principle as
(סימן כח, ס״ָק מב) Berura Mishna The .well
who is the main Posek of the previous
generation for the Ashkenazim, wrote to
follow the Gemara and the Poskim over
the Zohar and Kabbala, with exception
to whenever the Poskim didn’t state their
opinion or whenever the Poskim argue
over a certain law, then the Zohar would
determine the outcome. Another exception
is if the Kabbala is more stringent than the
Pshat then we should follow the Kabbala.
Contrary to that, the Kaf Hachayim a late
that) סימן כה, ס״ק עה) wrote ,Posek Sefaradi
the Sefaradi approach is the way the Bet
Yosef stated (see above), that Le’halacha
we go with the Zohar’s ruling. Since the
Sephardim always follow the Shulchan
Aruch, in this very case it isn’t any
different, and one must follow his Psak that
Kabbala overrides the Pshat and all other
Poskim. Moreover, even if the Bet Yosef
himself says differently than the Kabbala,
Sephardim must follow the Kabbala.