Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart

Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart
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Thursday 2 December 2010

Whether Or Not To Bless

The Shulchan Aruch (O.Ch. 671:8) notes that since one must put one's lit channukiah at the entrance of the house, one living in a house with two or more entrances on different sides has to put a lit channukiah at each one.  The reason for this is so that someone walking by the house won't see an empty doorway and suspect the owner hasn't lit his channukiah.  However, the Shulchan Aruch paskens that one need only make a breachah over one channukiah and then light the rest without a blessing.
However there's a problem with this.  In Yoreh Deah 13:2 it is taught that a person who ritually slaughters a pregnant animal and finds that the foetus is developed enough to walk on its legs after being removed from the mother must ritually slaugher the baby if he wants to eat it.  Normally one does not have to slaughter a foetus since it's considered pre-slaughtered because of its mother, but in this case one does.  Like with the channukiah, there is a concern of maaris ayin.  People might see the foetus walking around, not realize where it came from and then wonder why the owner didn't shecht the animal.  But now comes the crucial difference.  According to Rav Akiva Eiger, zt"l, in the name of the Rashba the slaughterer must make the blessing on schechting before killing the animal.  This is in contradistinction to the extra channukiahs where no separate blessing is made for each.
Rav Yehudah Gutman notes thast Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt"l reveals that the difference is that the channukiah is a necessary mitzvah while slaughtering is an optional one.  One must light the channukiah, one does not need to eat meat and therefore slaughter.  Since one has no choice but to light multiple channukiahs because of a takana of Chazal, one need not make the extra blessings.  What's more, one has fulfilled the element of pirsumei nisa simply by lighting, even without a blessing.  However, when one comes to slaughter the mobile foetus, the situation is different.  Because of maaris ayin the kosher slaughtering becomes obligatory.  Therefore this animal is now like all others and needs to be shechted to be eaten.
I would like to wish all my readers a healthy and happy Chanukah, one and all.

3 comments:

SJ said...

bless my blog. XD

Garnel Ironheart said...

Go back on your meds.

SJ said...

bless my meds (caffine). XD