[Avodah] birchat kohanim

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 07/11/2016 05:50 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 11:45:34AM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
> : How would you analyze the amount of "bother" you should go to in Eretz
> : Yisrael to attend a minyan where there are kohanim in order to get
> : birchat hakohanim? Differentiate between the mitzvah and the benefit of
> : the bracha. Does it turn on the machloket as to whether the mitzvah is
> : on the cohanim alone?
>
> If duchaning really is a mitzvah, how can benei chu"l have a minhag to
> skip it?
>
> A derabbanan can certainly call for a bitul asei, especially besheiv
> ve'al ta'aseh. But a minhag?

The ostensible reason for the minhag is that duchening requires simcha,
and nowadays with all our troubles we only have real simcha at musaf of
yomtov.

But Minchas Yitzchak says that the real reason is that our kohanim's yichus
is uncertain, so every time they duchen they are risking an avera.
Therefore, just as a safek kohen only takes teruma once a year so as not to
lose his status, so also our kohanim only duchen on those occasions when it
would be obvious if they abstained, and people would talk.



-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis