[Avodah] Birkas haChama

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Efraim Yawitz asked:
> Since the Birkas ha-Chama is coming up next year, I'm wondering
> if anyone has thought about the factual aspects of the subject.
> As far as I am aware, this 28-year cycle means absolutely
> nothing according to modern astronomy (or even according to
> Ptolemaic astronomy).  Has this been discussed before?

The Artscroll "Bircas Hachama" goes into it. As I recall, there were two views in the gemara on how to calculate these cycles, one being more accurate mathematically, and the other being the one we use. It seems that Chazal deliberately opted for a less-accurate calculation, because it has the advantage of being more useful to the average person, who would be unable to calculate the other one.

Tal Umatar (in chu"l) is another application of this exact same machlokes: Pretending that the solar year is *exactly* 365.25 days long enables the halacha to be kept more uniformly, and by more laymen.

I have seen other halachos which seem to use similar reasoning. For example, chanuka lights and sukka sechach must both be no higher than 20 amos, and for the exact same reason: to insure that they areseen by people on the ground. But it seems ludicrous (to me) that height alone would be the only factor - surely the horizontal distance is also very important! If one is some distance away (where the street is wide or sukkah is wide) the angle from the eye to the mitzvah will be shallow, and one can see the mitzvah even if very high. But if the street or sukkah is narrow, then the mitzvah will go unnoticed even at a comparatively low position. Yet the halacha in all (most?) cases is that we go strictly by the height, because that is a lot simpler for the average person.

Other examples include:
- Urine is diluted with a reviis, regardless of how much urine it is.
- Halachos about eating in the afternoon on Erev Shabbos and Erev YT totally ignore how much one ate in the morning, or what time one expects to finally eat at night (at the seder, for example).

Chazal made no effort to keep halacha easy, but they did try to keep it simple.

Akiva Miller

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