Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Bracha for Shechting Ben Paku'ah But Not for Extra Chanukiah

Right.  Having now established precisely (more or less) what a ben paku'ah is, we are now ready to understand why a bracha is required for the sh'chita of a ben paku'ah, but not bracha is required (nay! even permitted) when lighting a chanukiah in a second window that faces a different direction.  The source of our consternation is that in both cases it is Chazal who required the additional action and that action is required for the same reason; namely, to prevent onlookers from drawing a false conclusion based on our suspicious activity.  R' Shlomo Zalman Auerbach gives four differences in the situations that help us to understand the difference in decrees of our Sages.

First there is a timing issue.  The second chanukiyah is usually going to be lit at the same time (or within minutes) of the first one.  The ben paku'ah, on the other hand, could very well be shechted even years later.  It is perfectly reasonable, therefore, to consider the lighting of the second chanukiyah as covered by the first bracha, which is not the case for our walking happy meal.

Second, the nature of sh'chita is that it serves a two-fold purpose: the fulfillment of a g'zeira and also permitting something that was here-to-fore forbidden; turning the animal into meat, in this case.  The lighting of the chanukiyah, on the other hand, is simply the fulfillment of a g'zeira; that action serves to remove suspicion, but not to permit anything that was forbidden before.  We do not find that Chazal established brachos for those activities.

Third, the g'zeira requiring sh'chita of a ben paku'ah is a real, live, full fledged g'zeira; even if there are no onlookers and even no possibility of onlookers, that ben paku'ah requires sh'chita.  The g'zeira requiring the second chanukiah is only operative as long as there is a possibility of suspicion from onlookers.  Now a days that we light inside with no concern that passers by should see our chanukiah at all, there is also no necessity to light a second chanukiah either (Mishna Brura 671, sk 54).

Finally, even if an onlooker would suspect a non-second-chanukiah-in-a-second-window-facing-a-different-direction-lighter of not lighting chanukah licht at all, he is certainly not going to conclude that no one in this town lights chanukah licht or that he doesn't need to light.  His suspicion is narrowly focussed on that one ba'al ha'bayis in that one house, because he is surrounded by lots of chanukios in lots of houses.  Shechting a ben paku'ah, on the other hand, could certainly be the only sh'chita going on right now; certainly that was the usual case before refrigeration.

There you have it.  I am sorry if I caused you a lot of distress over Shabbos trying to figure out what the differences might be.  Actually... no; I'm not sorry at all.  In fact, feel free to look into it more yourself, Halichos Shlomo, Mo'ed, chapters 13 - 17.  Don't skip the footnotes.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc