The actual word minhag appears twice in the Hebrew Bible, both times in the same verse and translated as "driving": And the lookout reported, "The messenger has reached them, but has not turned back.
"[1]Homiletically, one could argue that the use of the word minhag in Jewish law reflects its Biblical Hebrew origins as "the (manner of) driving (a chariot)".
The present use of minhag for "custom" may have been influenced by the Arabic minhaj; in current Islamic usage, this term is used for the intellectual methodology of a scholar or school of thought (cf.
These minhagim exist in various forms: Various sources in rabbinic literature stress the importance of a long-held tradition, culminating in the statement "the minhag of our fathers is [equivalent to] Torah".
(Isserles' gloss on the Shulchan Aruch was, in fact, written so as to delineate Ashkenazi minhagim alongside Sephardi practices in the same code of law.)
[4] The Rosh states that the Talmud's ruling fundamentally applies to practices undertaken by learned individuals; innovations by the unlearned need only be followed publicly.
Consequently, abandonment of such a minhag typically requires hatarat nedarim or sh'eilat chakham: Halachic procedures for absolving oneself from oaths.
[7] Orthodox rabbi and historian of Jewish law Menachem Elon writes: The acute displacement brought about by World War II and the Holocaust, and the large-scale immigration to the United States, various European countries, and especially the State of Israel, have led to a mixing of various minhagim and arguably the gradual disuse of certain customs.