- Listening to half a beracha
- 1) Berachos 20b are women obligate in grace after meals biblically or rabbinically? What practical difference is there? If they are obligated biblically, they can exempt a man by reciting the bentching for him; whereas if they are only obligated rabbinically, a rabbinic obligation cannot exempt a biblical one, because their level of obligation is not the same.
- 2) Rashi explains that the reason they might be exempt would be because part of the bentching is to thank Hashem regarding the land, and the women did not directly receive a portion of the land. The daughters of Tzlafchad, for example, only received land by virtue of inheritance from their father.
- 3) Tosfos objects, that on this basis a Kohein or Levi should be exempted as well; for they also did not directly receive land- the tribes separated and gave them cities, not unlike the daughters of Tzlafchad. Therefore tos suggests the reason they would be exempt is that they are not oligated in circumcision or Torah, and cannot therefore say the portion that refers to these mitzvos.
- 4) The Hagos Ha’shri in tractate megila seems to pose a compromise view; women are indeed obligated to recite the grace after meals, but they cannot exempt a man, because they are not obligated to recite the parts referring to bris and Torah.
- 5) This would seem to contradict the gemara, which allows women to exempt men if they are biblically obligated.
- 6) Rabbi Akiva Eiger answers, that they may exempt the man for the majority of the bentching, but the man would need to insert these additions of bris and torah at the appropriate time.
- We see from this that part of the blessing can be fulfilled through ‘listening’ and part through actual saying.
- 7) We see a similar idea from the following case; the magan avrohom writes that since women are biblically obligated in Kiddush, a bar mitzvah boy cannot exempt her with certainty, until we know that he actually reached puberty. So the magan avohom suggests a solution- she should recite the kiddush word for word along with the boy.
- 8) Rabbi Akiva Eiger asks, how does this solve the problem? If the women recites the kiddush on her own along with the boy, she will have recited kiddush not over a cup of wine? And even if the boy is truly bar mitzva she will not have heard it from him? R.A.E. proposes that what the MA means is that she should recite a few words to fulfill the biblical obligation and listen to the rest to fulfill the rabbinic obligation- we see again that one can fulfill part through listening, and part through saying
- 9) The Chazon Ish asks, that when it comes to bentching the Shulchan aruch states that one may hear the 4 blessings from 4 different people, but one may not split one beracha between two different people.
- 10) The steipler suggests a resolution; we are not permitted to split a beracha into two, but if one person is saying the entire beracha, one may listen to part and be yotzei that part.
- 11) The steipler brings a proof from megillah; if one misses words from the chazzon, one may insert the words he missed, thereby fulfilling his obligation partly through listening, and partly through saying.
- 12) The Ba’al Haturim brings an ancient custom that the congregation would recite the first part of the blessing of Shabbos, and the chazzon would complete it. The Rosh asks he doesn’t understand the basis of this custom. According to what we are learning now, it would work.