[Avodah] Correcting Baalei Kriah

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 18/07/17 22:23, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> I honestly don't know how you distinguish between a "takanas
> chachamim" and a "chiyuv", but let's ignore that,

But that is key.  What is a chiyuv, or rather in Hebrew a chovah?  As 
anyone who's read an Ivrit bank statement or balance sheet can tell you, 
it's a liability.  "Lotzeis y'dei chovah", or "being yotzei", means 
discharging that liability.  If there is no chovah then there is nothing 
from which to exit; one cannot speak of being yotzei something that is 
not a chiyuv.

Now krias hatorah is not a chovah on any individual.  If one missed 
leining one shabbos one needn't make it up.  Even if there are 10 men 
who missed it, and therefore could make it up if they wanted to, they 
don't.  But it is a chovah on the tzibbur; if for some reason an entire 
community was unable to read the Torah one week they must make it up the 
next week by reading two sedros.  If they don't then their liability has 
not been discharged.

When it comes to the haftarah, however, we do not find such a thing.  If 
the tzibbur missed one week's haftarah they needn't make it up.  This 
tells me that there is no communal chovah for the haftarah to be read. 
Chazal instituted that it be read, and they composed brachos to be said 
with it, but it is simply a part of the order of the shabbos service, 
which ought to be followed, but there is no liability, and therefore no 
concept of "yotzei" or "not yotzei".

Of course if it is to be read it should be read correctly.  *Anything* 
that is read should be read correctly; there is no virtue in reading 
carelessly, as if one's words are of no importance so it doesn't matter 
if one butchers them.   But bediavad even if a haftarah were mangled 
beyond recognition it's surely no worse than not having read it at all, 
and since not reading it leaves no undischarged liability on the 
community therefore a bad reading doesn't do so either.



> Can you cite any sources that reading "at least three pesukim
> correctly, or at least one pasuk" would suffice for whatever it is
> that we're supposed to be doing?

Suppose my argument is incorrect, and there *is* some obligation which 
the community must discharge?  How long a reading counts?  We know that 
the gemara's mention of 21 pesukim is merely a recommendation, since we 
routinely disregard it.  So how small *can* we make it?  By analogy with 
krias hatorah we can say that fewer than three pesukim is not a reading 
at all.  But maybe the analogy is inapt, and the takana is fulfilled by 
*any* reading from the nevi'im, even just one pasuk, or perhaps even a 
single phrase.  After all the whole takanah is simply in memory of the 
time when krias hatorah was banned, so we read nevi'im instead; so 
perhaps even a very small reading is enough to evoke this memory.


-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all