Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Tashlumin Learns Both from Whence It Came and Where It Is

No one Jew can fulfill all 613 mitzvos. Some are specific to kohanim, some to women; one (geirus) can only be done be a non-Jew!  So how do we reach the perfection that only comes from fulfilling all 613 dimensions of perfection?  Chazal tell us that by learning about a mitzah that we cannot fulfill, we are credited as fulfilling it.  Moreover, some mitzvos, even though one could fulfill them, it is not desirable to fulfill them.  Returning a stolen object, for example.  Stealing something just to return it is at best a mitzvah ha'ba b'aveira and generally frowned upon.  So some mitzvos are best fulfilled even l'chatchila through study.  I am going to put tashlumin in that category.  I found the following case cool because it touches on a lot of issues.

Suppose Moshe is unable to daven mincha one erev rosh chodesh.  So at ma'ariv he will daven a tashlumin right after his ma'ariv sh'mone esrei.  So far so good.  Ma'ariv on rosh chodesh itself is interesting, because if one forgets "ya'aleh v'yavo" he is b'di'avad yotzi.  Since this is t'fila, once he is not obligated to repeat, he is actually forbidden to repeat.  With that in mind, we are prepared to investigate the four possible scenarios: Moshe says "ya'aleh v'yavo" in both shmone esrei's, only the first, only the second, or neither.

The best case is that Moshe says "ya'aleh v'yavo" in both sh'mone esrei's.  Even though the one he missed did not contain a "ya'aleh v'yavo", the tashlumin sh'mone esrei is, l'chatchila, just like the one that it follows, not like the one that we missed.  (Had he said it then, in fact, he would not have been yotzi and would have been required to repeat.  Interestingly, therefore, one could be in the odd position of saying precisely the sh'mone esrei for tashulim that caused him to have to say a tashlumin in the first place.  Such is halacha.)

If Moshe says "ya'aleh v'yavo" only in the first sh'mone esrei, he is also ok (b'di'avad).  Since even his main sh'mone esrei would be ok without "ya'aleh v'yavo", the tashlumin certainly cannot have a more severe requirements.

If Moshe says "ya'aleh v'yavo" in only the second sh'mone esrei, then he is not yotzi his tashlumin and must repeat.  The problem here is that even though his ma'ariv was fine without "ya'aleh v'yavo", once he adds "ya'aleh v'yavo" in the tashlumin, it looks like he is making his second t'fila the main one.  Tashlumin must always follow the main sh'mone esrei, so this negates his tashlumin and it must be repeated.  (He does not need to repeat the first; it's not that bad.)

Finally if Moshe omits "ya'aleh v'yavo" from both sh'mone esrei's he is also fine.  The main is fine because that's how a rosh chodesh sh'mone esrei works.  His tashlumin is fine, because the one he missed also didn't have "ya'aleh v'yavo", so the tashlumin can't be more stringent.

By the way, all those extra sh'mone esrei's are not l'vatala.  In fact, they even count toward a person's required 100 brachos a day.  HaShem is so good to us!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction. ...

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Sha...

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 Aru...