[Avodah] Haetz and Shehecheyanu

Arie Folger afolger at aishdas.org
Wed Feb 14 07:00:09 PST 2018


RAM cited the Arukh haShulchan:

"The earlier Generations were temimim. They had simcha at seeing the new
fruit, and they gave heartfelt thanks to Hashem for the good that He gives
to the whole world. So *they* were able to say the bracha on seeing. But
us? The simcha and gratitude is not noticeable by us, except when the body
enjoys it at eatingtime. That's why it's not possible for us to say the
bracha on seeing. They (Rama 225:3) did write that 'one who says it on
seeing doesn't lose', but that only means that one should NOT say that for
us it would be a bracha l'vatala, because it wouldn't be."


Me: Perhaps we're missing a little obvious fact. Could it be that the joy
of seeing fruits is particularly felt by farmers, and that back when
everyone was a farmer of sorts, even if only in their garden (remember,
before the advent of refridgirators, either you had your own vegetable
garden or didn't eat them fresh). In the egalitarian vision of ish ta'hat
gafno veta'hat te'eno, everyone would indeed be a farmer, so this applied
and would apply to all.

Nowadays, hardly anyone is a farmer, and therefore we do not feel much joy
upon seeing the new fruits, hence we switched to blessing upon eating the
fruit. It has now been many hundreds of years that Jews became very urban.
So 500 years ago, in teh time of the Ramo, we were already not necessarily
rejoicing upon the mere sight of a new fruit, but the joy still lingered.
Meanwhile, we do not even necessarily feel the seasons in the grocery
store, therefore there are a bunch of fruits for which we no longer recite
shehe'hiyanu.

The above approach also solves RAM's question why we have less compunctions
delaying the onset of the berakha of leisheiv basukka for the sake of
waiting until we actually eat. These are very different berakhot that are
subject to different kinds of considerations.

Kol tuv,
-- 
Arie Folger
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