[Avodah] Shehechiyanu

[Zev Sero]

Allen Gerstl wrote:
                   .      .      . 
>>... The reason we don't say shehecheyanu on potatoes is not that 
>> they're vegetables but that they're stored all year; if they weren't, 
>> we would.

> What of fruits and vegetables that are shipped in to your community
> from various faraway places

This is surely the same as storage; the point is that the "season" has
been artificially extended to the whole year, and one can no longer
tell one season from the next.   So the question becomes the same as
it is with storage: how common is it?  If only a few rich people keep
a fruit in cold storage, but it's unavailable to most people, then that
doesn't count.  Essentially batla daatan etzel kol adam -- it may not
be seasonal in this house, but it's seasonal in the city as a whole.
But if it's commonly stored, so that essentially everyone enjoys it
all year round, then it's no longer seasonal.

So how does this apply to shipping?  If the fruit is only available
in winter at a few luxury fruiterers, then it seems obvious to me that
it's like the case where only a few rich people store it.  But what
if it's available pretty much everywhere, but at a very high price?
Here I'm not so sure, but it seems to me that $10/lb cherries are a
very different kind of fruit than $3/lb cherries, and that for the
average person the $10/lb cherries may be nice to look at but are not
really to be considered "available" for eating; so long as $3/lb
cherries are still seasonal, one should still be able to say
shehecheyanu on them, just as one says it separately on, e.g., red
and white cherries.

But maybe not; $10/lb cherries may not be something one can eat *every*
week, but most people *can* eat them in any *particular* week, at the
cost of something else.  That makes them different than a fruit that
just isn't available in the market, and to get it (e.g. for a pregnant
woman with cravings) one must knock on the rich person's door and ask
for some.

And even if one can't afford to buy $10/lb cherries, one still gets
the pleasure of seeing them regularly.  Perhaps we can relate this to
the question of when one says the bracha: The ikkar hadin is that the
chiyuv of shehecheyanu attaches when one first *sees* the fruit, not
when one first eats it; the pleasure of seeing it in the market is
enough to create a chiyuv.  But the minhag is not to say it until one
actually eats it, and there is a chiluk minhagim about which bracha to
say first.  The obvious halacha is to say shecheheyanu first, because
its chiyuv attached as soon as one saw the fruit, while the chiyuv of
ha'etz only came once one decided to eat it immediately.  But many
people have the minhag of saying ha'etz first, because it is tadir.
Perhaps we can say that for those who follow the first shita, the
din hasn't really changed; the ikkar pleasure is from seeing, and
therefore since  cherries can now be seen (for free) at any time of
year, it is no longer a seasonal fruit.  But perhaps those who follow
the second shita hold that there has been a fundamental change in the
din: ledidan the ikkar pleasure is from eating, not from seeing, and
since one does not eat cherries all year round it is still seasonal.

But that is not muchrach: Even for those who say shehecheyanu first,
and therefore hold that the original din still applies and seeing is
the ikkar, what kind of seeing triggers the simcha that creates the
chiyuv?  Stam seeing the fruit, and thus being reminded that there is
such a thing in the world?  Or is it the anticipation of eating it?
Does one have the same simcha when seeing a fruit that one can't eat?
Even back in the days when one said the bracha in the market, did one
say it on a fruit that one disliked, or to which one was allergic?

Another point:  Grapes of kerem reva'i that are grown within a day's
journey of Yerushalayim can't be redeemed for money, and must be
physically transported there, "in order to decorate the markets of
Y'm with fruit".  This shows us that there is an inyan in a fruit
simply being readily available in the market, "decorating" it and
giving the passersby the pleasure of seeing it.  Perhaps this has
some effect on our question.  Or perhaps not, since it only applies
to grapes and not to other fruit.


> Thus, as an example, kiwis are available throughout the year where I 
> live

Nitpick: kiwis are treife birds, not fruit.  You mean kiwi fruit.
(Which are really called Chinese gooseberries, but the New Zealand
marketers have successfully spread this new name in order to plant
in people's minds an association between the fruit and their country.)


> (and also 
> what is the meaning of "storage" need such be storage as a fresh
> fruit or vegetable or is it considered as storage if the fruit or
> vegetable is commonly frozen or what if it is available as a canned
> food?

Frozen and canned fruit are easily distinguished from fresh, and are
inferior to fresh, so they do not affect the shehecheyanu.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher