[Avodah] Baruch hu umvoruch shemo

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jul 05, 2009 at 07:42:55PM -0400, rebshrink at aol.com wrote:
: I understood my rebbie's, Rav Yoseph Beer Soloveitchik's, refusal to
: say Baruch hu umvoruch shemoh as a simple problem of Hefsik.?? During
: all situations of the Shaliach Tzibur saying the bracha to be motzei me
: through shomayah K'oneh...

I think you mean "berukh Hu uvarukh Shemo". Although your "umvarukh"
would answer my question about how one can bless the Ein Sof beyond
blessing He As He Is Perceived (Shemo).

This requires accepting a chiddush of RCBrisker that says that chazaras
haShatz is tefillas hatzibbur, a separate chiyuv from my own tefillah.
It's a diyuq belashon haRambam, which (as we recently discussed) may be
valid Torah but a distinction even the Rambam himself didn't notice. It
ends up being a Brisker chumrah causing a qulah.

But what about when you hear someone make a berakhah on a food you don't
intend to eat? Or before a mitzvah you aren't about to do?

For that matter, talmidei RYBS (including what my father taught me to do
when I was young) say birkhas hamitzvah before Hallel with the chazan
because if mitzvos einum tzerikhos kavanah, in order to still make my
own berakhah after his, I would have to have active negative kavanah,
intent not to be yotzei with the chazan's berakhah. And pahs nisht
to have kavanah not to do a mitzvah. I always wondered, therefore, why
RYBS didn't suggest the easier tactic of saying BHUBS, having a hefseiq,
and thereby requiring saying the berakhah oneself that way. It would
stand out less.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
micha at aishdas.org        I do, then I understand." - Confucius
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