[Avodah] Mitzva or Hechsher Mitzva

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:01:28AM +0300, Danny Schoemann wrote:
:> Do you kosher your own meat and poultry?  I certainly do not,
:> yet it is a mitzva.

: No it's not - and there's no Brocho when doing so. It's forbidden to
: eat blood, so you somehow have to remove it from the meat before
: eating it.
: Maybe it's a Hechsher Mitzva.

Or maybe it's a mitzvah makhsheres, rather than a chiyuv.

We discussed this possibility a number of times in the past. RSShkop
(and repeated by RDLifshitz in shiur) teaches of a middle ground between
the mitzvah chiyuvis and mitzvah qiyumis.

Not too likely with this example, which seems to be a clearcut stand-alone
lav.

However, I also do not slaughter my own chickens. There one has both
the lav of eating a tereifah (Rambam lav #181) or neveilah (lav #180),
as well as an asei (#146) of shechitah. The Raavad classifies it as a
mitzvah materes.

However, when RYL adds:
:> According to your logic one should become familiar with
:> doing this so that one can do the mitzvah.

If hafrashas terumah took the skill and practice that shechitah took,
I would also delegate it to another. But it doesn't. It's complicated,
but can be learned in a single sitting.

And I don't avoid meat due to my lack of shechitah skills; I delegate
it to someone else. The parallel would be going to COSCO to buy fruit
that someone in the know can perform hafrashas terumah for you -- and
thus still getting some sechar for terumah uma'aser, as well as being
able to direct one's business to supporting another Jew.

As it stands, hafrashas terumah is well worth the cost/benefit ratio,
IMHO.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
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