[Avodah] A question for the chevre

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Feb 20 08:21:16 PST 2013


On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 05:53:48PM +0200, Moshe Zeldman wrote:
: I think the Nefesh haChaim in the perakim is dealing with a not dissimilar
: issue. He attacks the chasidim of his day who give too much weight to
: kavana in mitzvos, and not enough weight to the halachic parameters. He
: mocks the Jew who, by taking so much time to build up a good kavana in
: Kriyas Shema, misses zman kriyas shema...

I don't know where this is. I did searches on he.wikisource.org for "Nefesh
haChaim Sha'ar" (words found at the top of each page of Nefesh haChaim, even
the peraqim between shaarim 3 & 4) with "shema", "bishma", "lishma", "hashma"
"Q"Sh", "BQ"Sh", "LQ"Sh", and "HQ"Sh".

:                                     ... The Nefesh haChaim's proof is the
: halacha that if a person says the words of shemoneh esrei without kavana
: (after the first bracha), b'dieved they're yotzei. But if they have kavana
: but don't actually enunciate the words at all, they're not yotzei. My kasha
: on the Nefesh haChaim is that by the mitzva of Kriyas Shema, I believe it's
: the opposite. If a person can't say the words (he physically can't talk, or
: he's in a dirty place), he's bedieved yotzai by thinking the words. On the
: other hand, if he says the words with no kavana whatsoever, he's NOT yotzei.

Rama 70:1 says this is only the first pasuq. And the MB cites the Levush
saying that the SA agrees. After that, he needs kavanah to be yotzei,
not kavanah of their meaning.

The question is how do the first berakhah of Shemoneh Esrei and the first
pasuq of Shema differ from the rest of their respective mitzvos. And
once you know that, you know what is generalizable to qol haTorah kulah
rather than being avodah shebaleiv specifically.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person must be very patient
micha at aishdas.org        even with himself.
http://www.aishdas.org         - attributed to R' Nachman of Breslov
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