Divrei Chaim: Notes from the Underground

Wednesday, April 01, 2020

Notes from the Underground - Day 6

Can someone who endangers himself, e.g. someone who ignores all warnings about social distancing (like this) and as a result ends up r"l contracting the virus, bentch gomel when cured?

A talmid of R' Azriel Hildesheimer suggested (the teshuvah deals with someone who attempted suicide and was saved) that birchas ha'gomel is patterned on the korban todah mentioned in our parsha -- it's like a "nishalma parim sifaseinu." Rashi on chumash in connection with korban todah mentions the chiyuv as applying to the 4 categories of people who have to bentch gomel -- someone who takes a sea voyage, someone who traverses a desert, someone who is released from prison, and someone who recovers from illness. "Yodu l'Hashem chasdo v'yizbichu zivchei todah" -- we can't do the "zivchei todah" part, but we can and do do the "yodu l'Hashem" part by saying the bracha. Therefore, just as it is prohibited to offer a korban brought by a rasha (zevach resha'im to'eiva), so too, it would be improper for someone who violated the issur of endangering his own life to recite a gomel.

R' Hildesheimer disagreed. Rashi on chumash is a derush, it's peirush ha'mikra, not a halachic statement. The chiyuv of birchas ha'gomel has nothing to do with the chiyuv to bring a korban todah when one experiences a nes. Furthermore, the fact that one is guilty of wrongdoing and unworthy of being saved is all the more reason for one to recite a birchas ha'gomel, as we see from the nusach ha'bracha itself: ha'gomel **l'chayavim** tovos -- Hashem has provided relief even to those who are "chayav" and not worthy.

For more on the topic, see Yechaveh Daat vol 4 # 14

8 comments:

Judah K4:18 PM
if someone goes on a boat or plane or through dessert that is a sakana and survives makes a bracha, isnt that the same as you didnt need to go on the boat, etc. or maybe here you are inappropriately putting yourself in danger
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alonzo maccabi5:01 PM
"all the more reason for one to recite"

source for the recovered sick to give thanks:

[April] Fools! by their misconduct sickened... Tehillim 107:17 (Berachot 54b)
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Eliezer Eisenberg5:39 PM
Yasher koach for the timely mareh makom. The only issue is that the bracha is said after ונתרפא, and in cases like this, from what I've seen, רפואה takes a loooong time.
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micha berger1:06 PM
Do you make a berakhah on a stolen apple?

I don't follow something about R Hildesheimer's point. Rashi is referring to a point with halachic application. For example, it's why most of us make a birkhas hagomel when flying over an ocean, sea or large enough lake. Even though both mile-per-mile and per man-hour, car travel is riskier. Because the four yeshu'os mentioned in Tehillim are a reflection of Qorban Todah and thus at the root of Birkhas haGomel. We crossed the sea, we bench gomel. Someone is healed from a life-threatening illness, freed from capture or jail, or crosses the desert, they bench gomel. Regardless of the size of the risk.

So how can we just dismiss that connection as parshanus?

Or perhaps, R Hildesheimer would have been in the minority who wouldn't have someone bench gomel when flying overseas. (Or across the Great Salt Lake or the Mojave Desert.) In any case, I think most of us hold differently.

Side-point: The pereq tehillim mentions these 4 yeshu'os in the context of yetzi'as Mitzrayim. Maybe that is part of the point of Birkhas haGomel (assuming the connection is real) -- we all experience our tastes of yetzi's Mitzrayim, and the opportunities to take its lessons.
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Ariella's blog2:54 PM
>>>Because the four yeshu'os mentioned in Tehillim are a reflection of Qorban Todah and thus at the root of Birkhas haGomel.

You need a makor in Chazal that 1) you bring a korban todah for these and only these 4 events; 2) the mechayeiv of gomel for those 4 events comes from korban todah. Both are missing. (from CB)

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