[Avodah] mezuzah

[Zev Sero]

On 23/08/2012 10:37 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> The question of mezuzah as amulet vs sekhar mitzvah would differ in
> effect in the case of someone who has their mezuzah checked as require
> kehalakhah, but kelapei Shemaya galya that it became pasul. The mitzvah
> is being done properly, sekhar shouldn't depend on the physical state. But
> the amulet aspect simply isn't there.

We've had this out before.  If the mezuzah is pasul then the mitzvah
is *not* being done properly.  Anus rachmana patreih, and he won't
ch"v be punished as if he'd deliberately neglected the mitzvah, but
keman de`avad lo amrinan, and he has not earned the sechar.   Just
as if a mikveh is discovered to have been pasul when a tamei person
used it, he can't be punished ch"v for having handled terumah, entered
the mikdash, etc., but the fact is that he is tamei, and the terumah
he touched is tamei.   If someone believed in good faith that he was
Jewish and then discovers that he isn't, the animal he shechted is
treif, the mezuzah he wrote is pasul, the person he was motzi in a
mitzvah has to do it again, etc.  Sechar mitzvah is for *doing* it,
not for *thinking* you did it.   This is pashut and I don't see how
anyone can claim otherwise.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon