[Avodah] New Brachos

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:

> I have not learned that Gemara, so I'm not familiar with the ideas
> you're bringing. But I am coming around to the idea that when Chazal
> designed a bracha (whether they specified the precise text is irrelevant),
> they made it equivalent to an oath. In doing so, they invoke a whole set
> of rules about what that bracha means and when it can be said. Perhaps
> this is also why it is important to have a precise definition of what is
> and is not a bracha: it must contain Shem and Malchus.
> 
> For example, Hamotzi is equivalent to swearing that one will now eat
> some bread; if he does not do so then it is equivalent to a false oath.
> Similarly, if he says Shehakol during a Hamotzi meal and does eat the
> shehakol food, it is not a false oath, but it is an unnecessary oath.

But surely the most basic requirement of an oath is intent.  Suppose
someone hands me a page of transliterated Urdu, which I read, and I
then find out that it said "I swear, al daas bes din ve'al daas horabim
and without any asmachta, and with every expression of shevu'ah, to
give Mr Imran Khan $1M", surely it is of no effect, since I had no idea
what I was saying.   Hashem's repeating "lo osif" is a *sign* that He
was taking an oath; it's not some sort of magic formula that "trapped"
Him kiveyachol into an oath that He didn't mean to take!  If someone
doesn't know that repetition is a conventional way of indicating an
oath, then how can his repetition have that meaning?


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