Is Rashi Responsible for Jewish Division?

Q. Why did Rashi create Ashkenazic customs and nusach? This has divided the Jewish people. What would it take for Ashkenazi Jews to return to Sephardi customs and nusach?

A. Thanks for your message and your question. I'm afraid you're working under a few assumptions that are incorrect. Rashi may have been an Ashkenazi rabbi, but he didn't invent the thing; it evolved organically over the course of centuries. Saying that Rashi "created" Ashkenazic practices is like saying that the Rambam "created" Sefardic practices. They may have contributed to them, even significantly, but they mostly reflected the practices of their times and places.

Similarly, your assumption that Ashkenazim were previously Sefardim and changed is inaccurate. Here's a brief history: In the time of the Gemara, the Jewish population was pretty centralized, in Babylonia and Israel. Rulings made by the Gemara were able to take into account the opinions of all the authorities of the time. This is why whatever the Talmud rules is universally binding on all of Jewry. However, with further exile, dispersion and migration, the Jewish communities became separated and each evolved individually. Such groups include the Ashkenazim, the Sefardim, and the Yemenites. Each of these traces its roots back to the Talmudic tradition, but their minhagim and nusach developed separately based on the rulings of their authorities, which reflect the unique challenges and conditions each community faced.

If you'd like to learn more about the history of the Ashkenazic tradition, you can read this series of articles, transcribed from a lecture by an authority on the subject: The Spread of Minhag Ashkenaz

I hope this helps!

Rabbi Jack's book Ask Rabbi Jack is available from Kodesh Press and on Amazon.com.