This is based on the Bar Mitzva "pshetel" said by my beloved nephew Eliyahu Alexander Zusha Ehrman of Passaic NJ, Shabbos Parshas Beshalach 5778:
The pasuk in
Parshas Beshalach says זה אלי ואנוהו - This is my G-d and I will glorify him. The
Mechilta says in the name of Rebbe Yishmael that it means התנאה לפניו במצוות
that one should look beautiful before Hashem when he does mitzvos. Meaning that
one should have a beautiful lulav, a beautiful succah, beautiful tzitzis, and
beautiful tefillin. [Paranthetically – the lashon is interesting התנאה לפניו במצוות - the PERSON should look beautiful when doing
mitzvos. Meaning, that when one has a beautiful mitzvah object, it reflects
back on the person and he looks beautiful, too].
The gemara in kiddushin
teaches mitzvah bo yoseir m'bshlucho, it is a bigger mitzvah to perform the
mitzvah by oneself rather than appointing a shaliach to do it on his behalf.
So now we have two
important values – beautifying mitvos and doing mitzvos by himself and not
appointing a shaliach to do them for him. Let's say that there is a conflict
between these two values and he has to choose – either do the mitzvah with
shaliach but in a beautiful mehuder-dike way or to do the mitzvah on one's own
but in a more simple way.
F'rinstince: If I write a sefer torah on my own it
won't be beautiful but I did it MYSELF!! On the other hand, I can hire a sofer
as my shaliach, and it will be beautiful but then I didn't write it myself.
What is preferable?
The Sdei Chemed [Rav
Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini who was a Rabbi before he became a camp] brings the
Chaye Adam who has this safeik. The great Chebiner Rov, Rav Dov Beirush
Veidenfeld who was a leading gadol in Eretz Yisrael in his Doveiv Meisharim, writes
that hiddur takes precedence. Go for the
beauty even though it means you don't do it yourself.
And he proves it!!:-)
The Yerushalmi in Yoma [Perek Vav] writes regarding the cutting of the wheat for
the korban ha-omer [the barley offering we bring Pesach time], that if we have
two options where to take the omer from, either good quality moist barley that
is already cut or dry low quality "grade b" barley, we should take the quality
barley even though it means that we are nullifying the mitzvah of cutting the
omer. So we see that hiddur mitzvah, doing the mitzvah in a beautiful way
trumps [no relation to Donald] the mitzvah of cutting the omer. If so,
certainly, kal vachomer, that it takes precedence over the value of mitzvah bo yoseir m'bshlucho –
doing the mitzvah on your own and not appointing a shaliach. Hiddur mitzvah is
so important that it beats the mitzvah of cutting the omer and certainly of
doing mitzvos on your own.
Another proof brought by
the Chebiner Rov in his Doveiv Meisharim that the value of hiddur mitzvah beats the value of doing
mitzvos on your own: Hiddur mitzvah is mi-dioraisa, from the Torah, while doing
mitzvos on your own, mitzvah bo yosei m'bshlucho, is only m'drabanan. So of
course the di-orasia beats the d'rabanan.
Let us see if those two
premises are true – that hiddur mitzvah is mi-dioraisa and that mitzvah bo is
only m'drabanan. The Shaagas Aryeh, Rabbi Aryeh Leib Ginsburg of Metz [France as opposed to the Metz of Queens] in simman nun, roars ["shaagas aryeh" means roaring lion. I
wonder if he was from Detriot] that hiddur mitzvah is sourced in the Torah. His
proof is that if one shechts a skinny animal as a korban and then finds
a big fat beautiful heavyweight animal, he should shecht the heavyweight animal
even on Shabbos because the importance of hiddur mitzvah is so great it even
overrides the mitzvah of Shabbos. However the Maharsha [in maseches Shabbos daf
kuf dalet] writes that hiddur mitzvah is only m'drabanan.
The gemara in Bava Kamma [ט עמוד ב] says that hiddur mitzvah is עד שליש until one third of the price of the mitzvah. The gemara asks if the third is מלגאו from the inside of 100 dollars, for example if a regular esrog costs 100 dollars, he should add 33 dollars and 33 cents to buy a more beautiful esorg. Or מלבר from the outside, meaning a third of the price AFTER adding the third. So if a regular esrog costs 100 dollars then מלבר will be 150 dollars. The Rosh writes that since the gemara doesn't resolve the safeik, we go לקולא and are lenient and so paskens the Shulchan Aruch. [On that note I won $3 million on the lottery this weekend so I decided to donate a quarter of it to tzdaka. Now I have $2,999,999.75.]
The sefer Pilpula
Charifta explains that we can be lenient because hiddur mitzvah is only
m'drabanan and the golden rule is that sefeik d'rabanan l'koola. That's cool.
But wait!! What about the Shaagas Aryeh who says that hiddur mitzvah is
mi-dioraisa??? The simple answer is that he will rule like those rishonim who
say that we go li-chumra, such as the Ra"n in succah ט"ו and Rabbeinu Yonah in Sefer Hayirah who rule
that the third is מלבר – from the outside and in our
example he would pay 150 dollars for the nicer esrog. The Mishna Brura also
says that we should be machmir. The reason is apparently because he holds that
hiddur mitzvah is mi-dioraisa.
The premise of the
Doveiv Meisharim that mitzvah bo yoseir m'bshlucho is agreed upon by various
acharonim cited by the Sdei Chemed but Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, the Rosh
Yeshiva of Volozhin, in his Haamek Davar writes that it is mi-diorasia. The
Sdei Chemed is of the opinion that it is m'drabanan.
We have to understand
the opinion of the Doveiv Meisharim who says that one should have the expert
sofer write the Torah on his behalf and not do it himself in an inferior way.
Think about it – how much more does it cost for a sofer to write a sefer Torah
than it costs to write it oneself? Tens of thousands of dollars. That is a LOT
MORE than a third that one is obligated to add for hiddur mitzvah. So why
should one have the sofer do it when it costs so much more?? Do it yourself!!
It is significantly cheaper and the halacha doesn't require that you add more than
a third?
BIG KASHYA. Digest it.
Maybe the Doviev
Meisharim doesn't mean that one is OBLIGATED to use the services of the sofer,
just that if he wants to have a mehudar-dike sefer he may have the sofer write
it. This may be contingent on a machlokes between Rebbi Akiva Eiger and the
Chazon Ish. The halacha is that כיבוד אב משל אב - one only has to honor his parent with the
parents money but not if the child has to take the money out of his own pocket. Rebbi Akiva Eiger writes that if the father wants a
piece of pizza and tells the son that the son should pay for it and at the same
time the mother asks for a drink and offers to pay from her own money, if they
are divorced and the mother has no obligation to honor the father, the son is
allowed to choose which parent to serve. We see that even though the son is
patur from honoring his father in this case [because the father asks the son to
pay himself], nevertheless, he may still prefer to honor his father over his
mother [whom he is obligated to honor because she is paying]. So the principle
is that even when one is strictly speaking patur from a mitzva, there is still קדימה
– an optional preference, for the mitzvah he is patur from over another mitzvah
he is obligated in [in our case honoring the mother].
Rebbi Akiva Eiger quotes
the sefer Maros Tzovos who says that he should listen to the mother. Since he
is equally obligated in honoring both parents [because they are divorced and
his mother has no obligation to honor his father], he should honor his mother
who offers to pay and he is thus obligated in the mitzvah and not his father
who doesn't offer to pay and the child is thus not obligated. We see that when
one is obligated in one mitzvah and is patur from the other mitzvah – he must
fulfill the mitzvah in which he is obligated. The Chazon Ish agrees with the
Maros Tzovos. In our case that would mean that he should write the Torah
himself because he is obligated in mitzvah bo yoseir m'bshlucho and not in the
hiddur mitzvah of hiring a sofer to write it because of the prohibitive cost.
But one can argue [and
we are Jews who love to argue] that in our case the Maros Tzovos and Chazon Ish would agree that he may ask the sofer to write the Torah because it will make
his life significantly easier to have someone else do it. Writing a sefer Torah
takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours. So if the only factor was the extra cost then
he should write it himself but since there is the additional factor of the
excessive toil involved in writing a Torah oneself, he may ask the sofer and
fulfill the hiddur. What about the great expense? Hey – all of the money comes
from Hashem and He will provide....
Another question is what
to do when we have a conflict between the value of zrizin makdimin l'mitzvos
against the value of hiddur mitzvah. F'rinstence, if he writes it now then it
won't come out looking so beautiful but if he waits and writes it at a later
time, it will look GREAT!! Zrizim says "do it now". Hiddur says
"hold your horses", or better "hold your sofer's quill".
That is a machlokes: Rav
Yaakov Reisher [who was niftar in 1733 and was a Rav in Prague] in his
"Shvus Yaakov" rules that you should go with the hiddur. The
Chesed Li-avraham by Rav Avraham Teumim [who was niftar in 1868 and was a Rav
in Botshasht and later Kaminetz] says that one should prefer the value of
zrizin and write it immediately.
Rav Yisrael Isserlin [a
late rishon who was niftar in 1460] in his sefer Terumas Hadeshen rules that
one should say Kiddush Levana on Motzei Shabbos and not earlier because it is
more mehudar to say it on motzei Shabbos when one is clean and wearing fine
clothing. So we see that we go for hiddur at the expense of zrizim, as the
Shvus Yaakov rules.
Now let's see. The value
of "zrizim" is learned from a pasuk and is seemingly mi-dioraisa.
Yet, hiddur overrides it. So it would also seem that hiddur would certainly override
the value of mitzva bo yoser m'bshlucho which is not mi-diorasia according to
most sources. That would bolster the psak of the Doveiv Meisharim that one should
use a sofer who will provide the value of hiddur and not write it oneself to
achieve the value of mitzvah bo yoseir m'bshlucho . We also have the Yerushalmi
we quoted that says that one should not cut the barley himself and lose out on
that mitzvah in favor of using the more quality barley. So hiddur even beats
out an actual maaseh mitzvah – it would certainly beat out zrizim. That is a BIG KASHYA on the Chesed Li-avaham who says
that one should prefer zrizim over hiddur. Rav Avraham Genechovski ztz"l
the Rosh Yeshiva of the Chebiner Yeshiva in Yerushalayim, discusses these
issues at length and what we quoted was the tip of the iceberg.
Last question: Mitzva bo
yoseir M'bshlucho versus zrizim makidimin. For example – he can write it
himself but slowly or use the services of a sofer who will write it rapidly
b'zrizus. I'll let you think about it…
