[Avodah] Lo Plug

[Micha Berger]

RET raised the same question last August
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol26/v26n171.shtml#09>:
> Since it is brought I have asked people for years for any rules when
> lo plog applies.

> It is obviously a machloket one famous candles is lighting candles for
> yom tov. The wife of the perisha says to first make the beracha and
> then light since it is YomTov.
> Magen Avraham yells at her and claims lo plog.

See the thread at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=L#LO%20PLOG> as
well as the next two.

RJR rejoined:
: imho this is a specific case of a more general question - is the
: halachic process reproducible?

To which I answered that I think it isn't. After all, which mistakes
become gezeiros involve the history and what mistakes were being made --
not only the process.

And then there are cases like "halakhah keBH" where the history of the
schools -- their relative sizes and members' kavod for the other school
-- determined din. The process could have gone the other way had the
history of the machloqes been different.

As to the original question... I would think that blurring that clouds the
whole point would not be good territory for such simplification. It's an
instance of kol hamosif gorei'ah. But using a suboptimal ordering of the
berakhos when lighting candles doesn't pose such problems. And while
making a later tzeis for taanis tzibbur is a tirchah, it doesn't hide
the notion of taanis tzibbur, teshuvah, etc...

Returning one step prior to RRW's comment:
> Why doesn't KAJ EG accept this heter?  Perhaps

> A. KAJ sees USDA as NOT so intimidating so it's a machloqes in shiqqul
> hadda'as [or in metzius]

> Or

> B KAJ has many Europeans. USDA is insufficient because of a "lo plug"
> that we want a single GLOBAL standard of Haleiv Yisroel - and NOT to
> Be subject to the vagaries of local gov't agencies.

My line of reasoning would rule out B. Because that's ignoring the whole
issue that chalav yisrael is based on.

This notion is akin to one I was taught WRT bal tosif. Tzitzis is about
"4 kanfos", perhaps in parallel to the "4 kanfos haaretz". Add a 5th,
and the mitzvah is more pale in symbolism. However, Chazal had no
problem adding knots to the original deOraisa...

Another example -- why are there so many hilkhos berakhos? Why didn't
Chazal simply make one berakhah rishonah, one berakhah acharonah
(perhaps 2 -- a separate one for the qiyum deOraisa), and keep things
simplarly simple? No, instead I need to know whether rice is a grain,
what's the iqar and what's the tafel, is it part of the meal...

I think because part of the haqaras hatov of a berakhah includes being
aware of the specifics of the tov. Gratitude for "everything You do" is
a pale "thank you".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 15th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        2 weeks and 1 day in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Chesed sheb'Tifferes: What is the Chesed in
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            harmony?