A long time ago we discussed R' Chaim Brisker's question on the Midrash Tanchuma that says that in the days of R' Chanina Sgan haKohanim the menorah miraculously burned from Rosh haShana to Rosh haShana. How then did they fulfill the mitzvah of hadlakas menorah? R' Chaim posed this question to to the Imrei Emes when they met. The Imrei Emes responded by quoting the din (Beitzah 32) that if you add a drop of oil to a burning lamp you are chayav on shabbos for mav'ir. Based on this, even if menorah continued to burn on its own, the kohanim could have fulfilled the mitzvah of hadlakah by simply adding a drop of oil.
R' Chaim was supposedly very taken with this answer, but R' Wahrman's in his She'eiris Yosef (vol 3) raises an objection. The Rosh writes that since hadlakah oseh mitzvah there has to be enough oil present in the menorah at the time of lighting to burn for the required shiur. If not, one has to put out the menorah and relight. Why should this be necessary? If adding oil counts as an act of hadlakah, all one should need to do is add the needed amount of extra oil that addition itself should count as a new hadlakah, one now done with the proper amount of oil present!
R' Wahrman asks the question on R' Chaim/the Imrei Emes, but I chanced across seeing that the Chidusehi Ben Aryeh, R' Gershon Edelstein's grandfather, flips things around and asks the question on the Rosh. How did the Rosh deal with the gemara in Beitzah? It is a longish piece, but the yesod that he tries to develop is that there is a difference between the definition of the melacha of mav'ir with respect to hil shabbos and the definition of mav'ir/hadlakah with respect to menorah, or other areas of halacha. Adding oil is a melacha of mav'ir, but not more than that. You would think that this is classic Brisker thinking -- you have what appears to be the same concept of mav'ir in different contexts, but tease out that it's really tzvei dinim chalukim b'yesodam. That's what makes the fact that R' Chaim applauded the answer of the Imrei Emes so interesting -- instead of distinguishing between the sugyos, it lumps the concepts together into one.
I just want to be the first to shtell tzu the Nimukei Yosef by אשו משום חציו.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean by that is that seems clear that to say that adding fuel is mav'ir means that it includes this act in the original act of havara. (That does not mean that if A lit a fire erev shabbos and B added on Shabbos, that B is pattur. B's act of adding to the original havara did take place on Shabbos.) If the original act is a maaseh mitzvah, this is also. If the original act is flawed, then this act can not be better than that. If you lit a menora during the day and added at night, there is no mitzvah. If you lit less than the shiur, adding is not called a bigger maaseh mitzvah.
ReplyDeleteSorry, maybe it's because I have a cold that is clouding my thinking, but I don't understand what you mean. Why do you assume adding fuel merely adds to the original act and is not a new action? Secondly, all the N"Y means is that the chovas ha'gavra of mazik and mav'ir occurs when the fire is initiated as opposed to during the duration in which it burns. How are you tying that in?
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