[Avodah] Is it better to have one person do a vadai mitzvah or a number do a safek mitzvah?

[saul mashbaum]

RCL wrote 
>>>
If it is important that each man should get the chance merely to upgrade
his mitzvah from a lesser to a greater one, then one would have thought,
perhaps, how much more so, that each should have the chance of upgrading
his no mitzvah to a real mitzvah
>>
This statement is true, but does not take into account the *risk* involved in the two cases. As I pointed out, in the yibum case, the risk is relatively small, since even if we "lose our wager" and none of the brothers marries his yevama, each one has nevertheless performed a mitzvah min haTorah, chalitza. In the "general" case, there is a chance that, according to the procedure which favors the the safek, *no* mitzva will be done at all;  it is possible that this risk is unacceptible, given the alternative which *ensures* that a mitzva will be done.
Let's consider the following scenario, which illustrates the general case. On RH, someone with a shofar has a choice of going to one of two places. In place aleph, there is one person who would otherwise not be able to hear shofar; in place bet there are five. However, the person with the shofar can with almost certainty reach place aleph before shkia, but reaching place bet on time is uncertain, although possible. Are we mandated to apply the priciple of yibum, go for the max as RCL puts it, and go to place bet, favoring 5 safek mitzvot over one vadaui one? According to what I wrote, not necessarily. Unlike the yibum case, here there is achance that *no* mitzva will be done if the shofar is brought to place bet. Perhaps, under these circumstances, given that a mitzva in place aleph is vadai, going there is preferable. 
Again, I am not favoring one place or the other, just maintaining that the yibum case is not similar enough to this case to *dictate* our decision.
RCL:
>>
 Given that everyone will have done a mitzvah, either chalitza
or yibum, why not have one person who knows he has done the vadai
mitzvah of yibum, and four who know they have done the vadai mitzvah of
chalitza.  Instead, everybody will have done a safek mitzvah of yibum
and a safek mitzvah of chalitza - ie two sfekos.  Now agreed that one of
those sfekos has to come up trumps, ie if one has done yibum one has not
done chalitza, but if one has not done yibum, one has indeed done
chalitza, meaning everybody gets a mitzvah apiece, but it is equally
true that everybody gets a mitzvah apiece if you go the other way - and
at least that way, everybody knows which mitzvah he has performed
>>
This is a messy case, and the sfakot are indeed stronger than any certainty we can achieve. Even in the "vadai" procedure, in which one yavam marries all the y'vamot, although we know with certainty that he has performed mitzvat yibum, we don't know with whom! And, although he has definitely has done yibum, he is not yoresh the property of any of the five deceased childless men, since he cannot demonstrate conclusively that he is the brother of any given one of them (even though he must be the brother of one of them). Whichever procedure we follow,  we're left with plenty of question marks. 
Saul Mashbaum
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