Parts 3-4: Rav Binyomin Shlomo Hamburger - Riverdale; Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz

Part 3 - Rav Binyomin Shlomo Hamburger, Shlita

A question on waiting three hours was addressed to Rav Hamburger after speaking at the Young Israel of Riverdale on the topic of “Yizkor, Kaddish, and Av Harachamim”. The audio was difficult to hear and transcribe and may not be 100% accurate.

…German Jews [used to] eat immediately with bentching in between [meat and milk]. Obviously, you have to rinse your mouth. The Dutch minhag is to wait one hour. The very early conception was to not wait more than just bentching and rinsing your mouth out properly and eating something. There was no time to wait. One is not allowed to do this nowadays. If you are Dutch, you can wait an hour, which is l’chumra (a stringency), but we go by the other poskim which claim that m’seuda l’seuda is measured to be three hours. Other poskim worked out this time to be six hours, while [the German] poskim worked this out to be three hours. In short, this is the reason…

Part 4 - Rav Binyomin Shlomo Hamburger, Shlita

The following is a translation from the introduction to Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz, vol. 3., p. 19-20. The piece begins by stating that Rav Shach Z”tl was a strong supporter of Minhag Ashkenaz and that Rav Hamburger has a collection of written and oral testimony regarding Rav Shach’s support of Minhag Ashkenaz.

…Pay special attention to a comment that was made by Rav Michael Lowenstein from London:

One of his (Rav Shach’s) students asked him about the waiting period between meat and dairy. [He asked], when I was young, I was accustomed to waiting three hours, as was the minhag of my Ashkenaz forebears. At this point, I would like to accept upon myself to wait six hours. Is it proper for me to change my custom? Rav Shach answered: Your father is God fearing and learned. It is not proper for you to be more stringent on what you accepted from your father. You should not change at all from the custom of your ancestors!

Some of those who spoke with me desired to locate the one to whom this was said to, and to hear it from him firsthand. How exactly did Rav Shach say this matter? When, and in what tone? And were these matters to be accepted as a matter of practice?

Others were not surprised at all; just the opposite - they brought support from various halachic sources or from what they heard from great torah scholars in our day. One prominent torah leader, who teaches in a yeshiva in Jerusalem, stated that he turned to the great Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach Z”tl, regarding this matter:

I inquired of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach: “One whose family custom is to wait three hours between meat and dairy, must he be concerned for the words of the Shach that anyone who has a raiach of Torah should wait six hours?” Rav Auerbach answered, “No! You should not change from the minhag of your forebears. What has strengthened klal yisrael throughout our exile are our minhagim!”

In opposition to this, others cited the opinion of Rav Elyashiv (Z”tl), who stated that one should not be lenient to wait three hours; according to Rav Elyashiv, it is fitting for everyone, including those of Ashkenaz descent, to wait six hours between meat and dairy.