Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: The Danger of Extrapolation in Halacha

The gemara is replete with discussions of the form, "Why are these amorai'im arguing that point?  That point is a know tana'itic dispute!"  The resolution is always to show that the amorai'im are discussing a different point than the tana'im; both amorai'im hold that regarding their issue there actually is no disagreement among the earlier authorities -- everyone would agree with them.  I think most of us blow through those with a "oh yeah... makes sense", but without considering the halachik consequences.  (Ok... I know I do that, so that's most people with whom I have discussed this issue.)  The truth is, though, that the gemara is doing that to teach important halachic distinctions.  Moreover and just as important, the gemara is also teaching a methodology and approach to the halachic decision making process.

Case in point: Suppose a person forgets y'aleh v'yavo in ma'ariv Friday night of chol ha'mo'ed.  (It has to be chol ha'mo'ed, because forgetting y'aleh v'yavo on rosh chodesh does not require repeating shmone esrei.)  We have seen before that, b'di'avad, one may rely on the m'ein sheva that we say Friday night.  Moreover, R' Akiva Eiger has a chidush that since that is the case, and since m'ein sheva does not include "mashiv ha'ru'ach u'morid ha'geshem", that one never needs to repeat shmone esrei because of forgetting "mashiv ha'ru'ach u'morid ha'geshem" on any Friday night.  Given that, it seems clear enough; m'ein sheva does not have "y'aleh v'yavo" in it, so one must not have to repeat shmone esrei any Friday not because of forgetting "y'aleh v'yavo".  Right?  Wrong.  Shmone esrei must be repreated.

To quote Sky Masterson (Guys and Dolls):
"My father told me, 'Son, I don't have much money to send you out into the world with, so I'll give you some advice. If you ever come across a man that has says he can make a jack jump out of a sealed deck of cards and spit cider in your ear, do not bet this man. For as sure as you stand there you will end up with cider in your ear"
What's the difference?  Halichos Shlomo explains that m'ein sheva was established specifically for Friday nights, summer and winter.  Therefore, since Chazal formulated it without "mashiv ha'ru'ach u'morid ha'geshem", it can only be because (b'di'avad) that phrase is not m'akev (an absolute requirement) in the Friday night shmone esrei.  "Y'aleh v'yavo", however, is missing because m'ein sheva is a Shabbos t'fila, not a yom tov t'fila.  Chazal didn't leave it out because it wasn't important, they left it out because it's irrelevant.  (Similarly, in the bracha after the haftara on Shabbos chol ha'mo'ed, there is no extra bracha because of the yom tov; the yom tov is irrelevant as far as the haftara reading from navi.)  Since "y'aleh v'yavo" is irrelevant to m'ein sheva, it cannot help to act as a tashlumin for a shmone esrei that was missing an essential ingredient.

And people say halacha is dry.  Sheesh.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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: 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: 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 Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more