Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Attaching Conditions to Mitzvah Fulfillment

It's not uncommon to hear on Friday afternoon, "I'll light candles al t'nai that I am accepting Shabbos later."  The statement doesn't mean "on condition", but "according to the conditions herewith expressed."  The point is that mitzvah observance is mediated by kavana/intent.  There are basically three ways you can go with this: kavana b'feirush (explicit intention), stam kavana (eh... que sera, sera), and kavana l'hepech (oh, no, I certainly do not mean that to take effect).

The Friday afternoon ritual is required because women have a long standing tradition of accepting Shabbos with their candle lighting.  If a women is running late, however, she can have kavana l'hepech that this act of lighting not be connected to her acceptance of Shabbos.

A similar t'nai is commonly used for eiruv tavshilin.  The rav of the city will make his eiruv earlyish on erev Yom Tov with the condition to include anyone who does not have an eiruv of his own before Yom Tov due to forgetting (due to being busy, not out of laziness), or unforeseen circumstances (a rat eats eat, for example; no, not his pet rat, Willard's rats).  That condition specifically excludes those who made an eiruv of their own (or who willfully neglected to make one) and allows them to therefore make a bracha on their own.

Making a tanai should be done, generally speaking, only b'di'avad.  There are reasons, after all, that mitvah observance has been done a certain way.  The candle lighting scenario, for example; there is the shitah of the Aruch that Shabbos actually starts 18 minutes before sundown.  That means that to get "tosafos shabbos" (adding onto Shabbos from the weekday) and the shitas haAruch, one really needs to light 20 minutes before sh'kiyah.  The real takanah of eiruv tavshilin is for each household to make their own in order to really start their Shabbos preparations before Yom Tov.

Sometime, however, the t'nai can even be l'chatchila. S'firas ha'omer, for example.  It is really too early to count (l'chatchila) right after the ma'ariv that comes on the heels of sh'kiyah.  On the other hand, it is sooo easy to forget later when one is alone.  The advice, therefore, is to make a t'nai that the counting I am doing now is with intent not to fulfill the mitzvah (kavana l'hepech), unless I forget to count later, then this counting retroactively should be considered as my counting (with kavana b'feirush).  That way you are covered on both sides.

One thing you can't do is to try to address the s'feika d'yoma issue by saying, "If Pesach was really on the our first day, then today is 22 days which is 3 weeks and one day of the omer, but it Pesach was really on our second day, then today is 21 days which is 3 weeks of the omer."  That doesn't work because you never really counted at all.  Counting with a t'nai is counting; expressing doubt about today is this or that just isn't counting.

Clear?  I know, I know... it depends...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more