Thursday, September 17, 2015

Where Am I?

לע"נ חמי ר' חיים צבי בן אליהו


The gemara in Brachos [12b] says that one must say המלך הקדוש during the aseres yemei teshuva instead of the usual הא-ל הקדוש. Tosfos and the Rosh write that if one is not sure whether or not he said המלך הקדוש he should assume that he said הא-ל הקדוש  as that is his habit and people follow habits… So rules the Shulchan Aruch [582/1]. [However, if at the beginning of shmoneh esrei he had kavvana to say המלך then he can assume that he did].

The author of the Sdei Chemed in his Michtav Li-chizkiyahu [סימן י'] presents a fascinating question. Let us say that someone says המלך  but is not sure whether he is holding by המלך הקדוש  or the later המלך המשפט. What should he do?? Should he say המשפט, הקדוש or go back to the beginning? There are many possibilities.
[Myse she-haya: A Jew was bentching, said yaaleh vi-yavo, continued [without thinking, instead of U'bnei Yerushalayim]] with Visechezenah, Modim, Sim Shalom, Elokai Netzor etc. When he got to Oseh Shalom, he wanted to take his three steps back but realized that he was sitting down. He said to himself "Vaist ois [I know from this] that I am takeh bentching and not davening shmone esrei".
The power of not paying attention....:-). Heard from the Rebbe Shlita].

The author of the Chasdei Dovid said that one should conclude המשפט because of safek brachos li-koola. We will explain: Let us say that you are in the middle of shmone esirei and don't know where you are holding. Should you apply the rule of ספק ברכות לקולא  and say from where you are sure that you DIDN'T say or should you go back further and say from where you are sure that you DID say? The Chasdei Dovid and  the Chaye Adam adopt the former position and he should say from where he is sure that he DIDN'T say [but the brachos about which he is in doubt, he should skip].

One might argue based on the psak of the Shulchan Aruch [107/1] that if one is in doubt as to whether he davened, he should daven. So too, if he is in doubt about how many brachos he said, he should say all of those about which he is uncertain and return to המלך הקדוש. The response is that when one is uncertain as  to whether or not he davened, he should daven again with a תנאי נדבה  - a conditional voluntary davening: "If I davened already then this should be a voluntary davening. If I didn't, then this should be a fulfillment of my obligation." However, there is no תנאי נדבה  for only part of the davening. So the Chasdei Dovid is correct and he should only say what he is sure that he didn't say but not what he is not sure about.

The Shorshei Hayom says that one should go back to המלך הקדוש. This can be explained in a number of ways. 1] He holds that one can say part of the tefillah with a תנאי נדבה  in an instance where he is in doubt. He may only not daven a tefillah בנדבה ["this tefillah should be voluntary"] when he is sure that he already davened. But when there is a chance that he didn't yet daven then a תנאי נדבה  is permitted. 2] It could be that he holds ספק ברכות לחומרא  and if he doesn't know where he is holding, he should go back to where he is sure he DID say [and thus say all of the brachos about which he is in doubt]. This is the opinion of the Yerushalmi [Brachos 5/3] the Hagaos Ashree [Megila 2/1] the Ohr Zarua and others [unlike the Chaye Adam].

This was explained by the Steipler [Kehilos Yaakov Brachos 17] as follows: If one skips one bracha of shmone esrei then all of the brachos are li-vatala. So if we allow him to skip all of the doubtful brachos then it will emerge that he might end up saying the rest of shmone esrei li-vatala. It is a קולא skipping the doubtful brachos but that might result in many brachos li-vatala. If he goes back to where he is sure that he said, he thereby ensures that all of the rest of the brachos will be כשר וישר  valid kosher brachos. So in our case if we allow him to start with המשפט  we have the concern that the  rest of the brachos will be li-vatala, so we tell him to go back to הקדוש  and fulfill the famous dictum "better safe than sorry".             

There is a ton more to say – look in the teshuva of the Michtav Li-chizkiyahu and in the writings of [see the end]….

מאוצרותיו של הגר"א גנחובסקי זצ"ל