[Avodah] Shehecheyanu on Mitzvoth

[Jay F. Shachter]

>
> ... he explains that "Since pidyon haben is a mitzvah that is
> performed only once in a great while and it is an occasion of great
> joy, Chazal required the father to recite a shehecheyonu prior to
> performing the mitzvah." (Immediately after, he writes about saying
> shehecheyanu at a bris milah. I get the impression that in theory,
> the same halacha would apply, but in practice there are some
> contra-indications involved.)
> 
> ..........................................
> 
> My question is: What makes Pidyon Haben different? Why can one
> definitely say shehecheyanu on Pidyon Haben, but all these other
> mitzvos are problematic?
> 
> In footnote 75, he cites Gemara Pesachim 121b about saying
> shehecheyanu at a pidyon haben. I suppose it is possible that this
> is the only mitzva for which the Gemara explicitly says to say
> shehecheyanu, and that's why all others are questionable. But that
> answer would make sense only if there were a similarly explicit
> gemara about shehecheyanu at a bris milah, and I did not notice that
> mentioned.
> 

My answer, based on my assumption that everyone in the world resembles
me, is that it has to do with the phrase that you quoted but did not
subsequently refer to: "it is an occasion of great joy".  All my life
I have been imagining how I would, one day, fulfil the mitzvoth of
brith milah and pidyon habben.  I have gone over the details in my
mind (for example, since I have daughter but do not have a son, I
imagine serving sirloin steak at the s`udath brith milah, thereby
fulfilling, on a single occasion, all the mitzvoth in Sefer Bresheeth).
I also imagine pausing for a long time when the priest asks me at the
pidyon habben ceremony whether I prefer to give him the money or my
son, until my imagined wife finally yells at me to answer him, and I
say to her "I'm thinking it over" (of course, I would rehearse this in
advance with her).  I do not have similar thoughts about other
mitzvoth.  I have not been imagining and re-imagining my whole life
the scene in which I fulfil for the first time the mitzvah of
slaughtering a chicken, or freeing my nonJewish slave after knocking
out his tooth.

               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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