[Avodah] Shehecheyanu on Matza

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 10/19/2015 05:24 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 02:42:43PM -0400, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
> : Of*course*  it's not on*possessing*  a sukkah; how could one possibly
> : say shecheyanu on possessing anything?  Shehecheyanu is by definition
> : on new things; one says it on*acquiring*  possessions, not on having
> : them...
>
> Correct, but on the joy of ownership, not the act of acquisition. SA OC
> 233:4 "she'enin haberakhah ela al yadei simchas heleiv", for he is happy
> when he acquires them. I do not think you would say this about a sukkah,
> since mitzvos lav leihanos nitenu.

Sure you would.  A sukkah is a major possession, that one is happy to
acquire.  It's a nice place to sit and enjoy, just like a house.  And
it's definitely on the acquisition; shehecheyanu is by definition on
a chidush, not on a static state of affairs, however happy one is about
it.  One doesn't say shehecheyanu on the anniversary of having bought
ones house, no matter how happy one is not to have lost it, and even if
there was a serious danger of losing it during the year.


> In any case, OC 641:1 says that someone who makes a sukkah doesn't
> make the berakhah then because we are someikh on the one made at
> Qiddush. But he says it's "al asiyasah". Not having it, but the act
> of making it.

I.e. acquiring it.  If you paid someone else to make it, or just bought
it ready-made, would the shehecheyanu be any less?!


> The Rama quotes the Ran that if it's raining or for some other reason he
isn't sitting in the sukkah, he still has to make a shehachiyanu "mishum
sukkah" -- which does seem to be about the cheftzah, not the pe'ulah.

Exactly.   But it's on the acquisition of the cheftzah, which is a
chidush, not on the timeless fact of owning it.


> Except that the Rama is extending the SA's pesaq, not contradicting it.
> Presumably both are speaking about making a berakhah on the same thing.

Exactly.  Therefore the SA is saying the same thing.

> In any case, it seems from R Zevin's explanation of the Avudraham
> that the shehechiyanu is being said on the Chag haSukkos, which then
> serves as an umbrella including the specific mitzvos of the chag.

He is talking about the normal shehecheyanu, which is said on both of
the first nights.  That shehecheyanu includes the *mitzvos*, including
yeshiva basukkah.  It doesn't include the joy over having built (or
otherwise acquired) this lovely structure.   In *addition* to that,
however, the shehecheyanu on the first night does include that extra
joy.  Since, unlike the joy over fulfilling the mitzvah of sitting
in the sukkah, that joy isn't bound to the yomtov, and in principle
the shehecheyanu ought to have been said *before* yomtov, therefore
once we've said it on the first night there is no reason to repeat it
on the second night.   Even if the first night is "chol" and the second
night is "yomtov", the shehecheyanu on the first night was still good
for this joy.   So on the second night the shecheyanu *doesn't* include
it, and is therefore said before leisheiv basukka.


> And yet, the Rama holds that if the person who didn't sit in the
> sukkah the first night also happened to make a shehachiyanu be'sheas
> asiyah, then he wouldn't make a shehechiyanu at qiddush.

No, he doesn't say that at all.   You seem to have seriously misread
him.   Of *course* one always says shecheyanu at kiddush on both nights,
because it's primarily for the chag.



-- 
Zev Sero               All around myself I will wave the green willow
zev at sero.name          The myrtle and the palm and the citron for a week
                And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm doing that
                I'll say "It's a Jewish thing; if you have a few minutes
                I'll explain it to you".