[Avodah] Tea before Shacharis

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Micha poignantly asked:
> He used to enjoy being a sha"tz, and ... singing along with
> the chazan ... Now, it's painful to make it all the way
> through one or more tefillos without a break, ... Can
> someone put his mind at ease by proving that the mashal of
> an eved hamozeg kos lerabo veshafach lo specifically
> applies to Sukkah?

I'm sure that people with better brains than mine will have a lot to say about this, but I can help but suggest a few ideas...

When I think of a situation where a person is unable to do a mitzva, I do not first think of Eved Hamozeg. Rather, what comes to my mind is Machshava Mitztaref L'Maaseh.

So the first question I'd ask is: Are these two ideas mutually exclusive? Perhaps when we leave the sukkah because of the rain, we get the zechus of living in it anyway. Or maybe sukkah is unique, in that it is an unusual mitzva, whose parameters are designed in such a way that Hashem can use it to show His displeasure towards us, by denying us both the mitzvah and its zechus.

Sukkah is a very unusual mitzvah. I cannot think of any other Aseh D'Oraisa which is so very dependent on one's subjective opinions, to keep the chiyuv in force, or to create an unavoidable p'tur.

Offhand, perhaps Krias Shma for a Chasan is similar. Or maybe that has nothing to do with Shma per se; maybe it's just an extreme example of the general principle of Mitzvos Tzrichos Kavana. Maybe Sukkah really is unique.

The mashal of Eved Hamozeg is designed to illustrate that when we have been denied the opportunity to do the mitzva, we should understand that HaShem is upset with us. Can someone do a search to see if this mashal appears in other contexts? If it appears only by Sukkah, or also appears for other similarly subjective mitzvos, then perhaps we can draw a clear line between the cases where it applies, and the cases where Machshava Mitztaref L'Maaseh applies.

Akiva Miller