[Avodah] New Brachos

[Arie Folger]

Daer Ovedim, I want to apologize for an overlong post, but I believe
that you will enjoy some of the ideas expressed herein.

R'n CL wrote:

> I do not disagree with this.  But, the new hypothetical brocha
> that RAM came up with, that of saying "Baruch Hashem Who
> makes pretty rocks" On walking down the street and seeing a
> pretty rock, seems to me to be a form of sheva'h rather than
> nehanin (ma'aseh breishis and zocher habris is surely shevah,
> rather than nehenin, and I took the rock case to be similar.

That's right.

> You could I suppose say that RAM is proposing his brocha
> because he is getting pleasure from the pretty rock

No, I don't consider that hanaah, either. However, I don't see why he
couldn't be so awed that he would be moved make, say, an 'oseh ma'aseh
vereishit. In fact, it may be justified (a bit tricky here, but it's
clearly the case when seeing awesome wonders of nature). That is a
reaction of sheva'h upon seeing something awe inspiring, not at all a
matter of being neheneh,

> As I understood it, not just on the steak, but on this brocha
> as well, ie as I understood it, RMB was saying that does the
> situation "seeing a pretty rock" call for a beracha (answer no,
> because we don't make brochos on rocks, but we do on seeing
> a rainbow or on thunder or on the ocean etc) - ie he was not
> distinguishing between brochos of sheva and nehanin.

He wasn't distinguishing, I was.

> Again, I don't disagree.  But, it seemed to me, when RAM was proposing the brocha that he felt would be a bracha l'vatala as he had always understood it,

That's indeed how he felt. And it may be correct. But it may also be incorrect.

<SNIP>

> on the other hand ROY and others understand the Mechaber
> as not liking hanoten layef koach not because it is a new
> brocha that violates an accepted position that post shas we do
> not come up with new brochos (because after all, not to accept
> new brochos post Shas is surely a form of minhag, and
> Ashkenazim saying it is also a minhag, so one minhag can
> trump another), but because if you do so, you get into bracha
> l'vatala territory.  Sheasani k'rotzono is surely a bracha of
> shevach, but ROY says you should say it without shem or
> malchus.

You are quoting the paramount Sefardi qanai, while I was explaining a
possible understanding of the Ashkenazi position. Apples and pears.

<SNIP>

> I can see a logic that *if* you say that merely mentioning
> HaShem's name

[nitpick: isn't HaShem already implying G"d's Name? Sounds like good
yom tov and mayim macharoinim wasser to me ;-) --AF]

> when it is not given sanction by Chazal
> to do so (which is the way I understand RAM to have
> understood the matter of a  bracha l'vatala up until now),
> then why would you not potentially have problems with mere
> songs?

The logic goes the opposite way. Quite obviously, most people don't
have such gripes. Yes, we are exceedingly careful about not
pronouncing G"d's Name unnecessarily, but we do generally pronounce it
when praising Him in religious song and poetry, as well as in
voluntary prayers (zemirot, te'hinot). Almost no one has a problem
with this. So, merely pronouncing G"d's Name outside of the framework
of Talmudically prescribed prayers isn't yet levatalah. Hence, the
reason why it may be considered levatalah has to do with the formula
of blessings.

I suggest the following speculative thought. As we know (well, if you
read the gemoraus precisely, and also look in teh Yerushalmi) that the
Anshei Knesset haGedolah did not formulate the prayer as we now know
it. They didn't formulate the shemoneh 'essrei, because it didn't
crystallize until hundreds of years later (I will provide a counter
sevara below, which doesn't impact my argument here). What they did do
is, first of all, to innovate the use of the berachot. In Tanakh, we
can count on the fingers of one hand all the berakhot, and only one or
two have shem umalkhut (Vayvarekh David is the one/one of them). Thus,
it seems that in Bayit Rishion different forms of prayer were used.

The AKhG innovated the use of blessings and made it the cornerstone of
prayer. They also formulated some actual berakhot and some actual
prayers.

Now perhaps AKhG felt that berakhot are so special, that the use of
such formulas should be severely curtailed, for it is, perhaps, akin
to a shevu'a, in that using it wrongly would result in a recitation
levatalah. This elaboration is of course based on your suggestion of
looking at shevu'ot for comparison.

However, that doesn't mean we can't innovate blessings at all, just
that it is so dear and risky that only very seldom may a post Talmudic
blessing appear.

NOTE: The Avudraham shows a strong affinity between the Tefillat
'Hannah and the shemoneh 'essrei. Hence, it is possible that AKhG and
even their predecessors had a rough list of topics and an order in
which these topics ought to have been included in prayer, when someone
would pray (remember that the obligation to pray twice and then thrice
daily is from after the 'hurban, tefillot keneged temidim tiqnum).
However, people were still free to drop some of those topics in favor
of others, as the Yerushalmi implies. In other words, there was only
partial standardization.

And it should not be surprizing that some aspect of the shemonei
'essrei would be so old, even though the text only became fixed with
Rabban Gamliel deYavneh and that even then it took another 5-6
centuries to really become fixed (give or take the minor differences
between the 'edot), for the whole idea of praying three times a day is
also hundreds of years older than its institution. Daniel regularly
prayed thrice daily and we quote in modim the phrase 'erev vavoqer
vetzahorayim, which is from Tehillim, so this idea, perhaps that when
one engages in prayer, or when one wants to engage in ideal prayer,
that one should pray thrice daily, well that may be as old as tefillat
'Hannah, or even older. Perhaps that is the meaning of tefillot Avot
tiqnum.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger,
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