[Avodah] Birchat Cohanim

[isaac at balb.in]

On 31 Oct 2024, at 1:12PM, R' Micha Berger wrote:
> One could have taken this far broader:

> The Gra's and RCV's motive was fundamentally based on the relative weights
> the Gra gives sevara and accepted practice / mimeticism / minhag Yisrael.
> If the Gra had (e.g.) the AhS's attitude, he would have been more motivated
> to find reasoning and sources that would explain how centuries of rabbanim
> allowed the common practice to continue and to spread.

> The apparent Siyata diShmaya may have not been just about limiting the
> times of Duchaning in Chu"L to Yom Tov (qua "yemei simchah"). It may have
> been an attempt to push Litvaks away from this attitude toward text-theory
> vs practice

Except that the Alter Rebbe tried exactly the same thing as the Gra
and faced similar real world push back incidents which made him also
reconsider and forget about trying to reinstate Duchening each day in
Chutz La'aretz. That Halacha is dependent on the qualitative Simcha felt
by Kohanim in Chul. That Simcha is less fettered on a Yom Tov and hence
permitted. I've always understood the happenings of the Gra and Shulchan
Aruch HoRav to be Hashem's way of saying "Well, you think that in Chul
your Simcha is on par with someone in EY. No, it's not. I've give you
signs that it is not". Indeed, Lo BaShomayim Hi, but...