[Avodah] [Areivim] Some Thoughts on the Dangers of Birchas HaChama

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:13:25 -0400 Yitzchok Levine
<Larry.Levine at stevens.edu> wrote [on Areivim, cited here with
permission]:

...

> The article says that those assembled in Thompson Square made the 
> Brocha at 8 AM. (This would be 9 AM if there had been DST, which 
> there was not). Thus, we see that they were not concerned about 
> making the bracha as close to sunrise as people seem to be today. 
> Furthermore, someone sent me the following:
> 
> "While of historical interest it is actually reappearing. In my town 
> in Israel the police have said that there can be no public meetings 
> before 7am and so disallowed a birchat hachama at sunrise.
> 
> As of now the rabbis are working on it."
> 
> I presume that the ordinance against assembling before 7 AM is to 
> prevent those making Birchas HaChama from waking those who are 
> sleeping.  I wonder what efforts will be made by those who want to 
> say Birchas HaChama as close to sunrise as possible  so that they 
> will not disturb those sleeping.  I mentioned this concern to a few 
> people this morning. The reply was, "It is Erev Pesach. Everyone 
> should be up anyway."
> 
> In my mind there is something wrong with this attitude. First of all, 
> everyone will not be up. There is no reason for the younger kids to 
> be up. They will not have yeshiva on Erev Pesach.  Also, the attitude 
> reflected in this approach, which I read as, "I am doing a mitzvah, 
> who cares about anybody else." does not sit well with me.  It 
> definitely goes against what was written in the article from last 
> week's Hamodia Magazine that I posted at
> 
> http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/hamodia/setting_limits.pdf
> 
> Will this once in 28 year event turn out to be yet another "victory" 
> of bein adam l'makom over bein adam l'chaveiro?

It must be understood that this is, first and foremost, a *Halachic*
question, and so the discussion must begin, if not necessarily end,
with the Halachah governing these sorts of conflicts between Mizvos and
the rights of neighbors.  In fact, the Halachah explicitly maintains
that the performance of (at least some) Mizvos yields a dispensation to
engage in noisy and tumultuous conduct to which the neighbors would
ordinarily have the right to object:

"And so too is it permitted to teach Jewish children Torah in his
house, and the neighbors cannot protest and say to him 'we cannot sleep
due to the noise of the tinokos shel bais raban', and this is the case
for all Mizvah affairs, that he cannot protest"

SA HM 156:3

Taz points out this exemption is specifically for those Mizvos which
require social gathering:

"It seems that for this reason Rabbeinu [Tur] wrote 'mili de'mizvah
such as the distribution of charity or to pray with ten men, to teach
us that the dispensation is only for a Mizvah which depends on the
gathering of men, such as these ..."

So there is a very solid precedent for choosing "bein adam l'makom over
bein adam l'chaveiro".  I am well aware that there are numerous
potential arguments against the application of this principle to our
case:

I) The Mizvah of Birkas Ha'Hamah, and particularly the hiddur, even if
there is one, of performing it at sunrise, may be of less importance
than the other Mizvos discussed by the Poskim

II) Performance in public may be different from performance inside
one's house

III) A time of the day during which many people are asleep may be
different from a time when most people are awake (see Hasam Sofer,
cited in Pis'hei Teshuvah [begining of 156], for a discussion of a
related distinction)

IV) There is considerable discussion in the Poskim over the application
of Dina De'Malchusa and Minhag to Nizkei Shechainim

But the bottom line is that the question must be considered from the
perspective of the Halachah, and not decided simply by casual
references to the categories of Bein Adam La'Havero and Bein Adam
La'Makom.

[Another area of Halachah that may be relevant here is the question of
Kofin Ha'Rov es Ha'Miut (this consideration was pointed out to me by my
Havrusah).  A discussion of this point is beyond the scope of this
email; see SA HM 163 and the Poskim there for the discussion.]

Yitzhak
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