תשובת החתם סופר על אודות ברכת כהנים בכל יום

1

The (חתם סופר (או"ח סוף תשובה כג reasons that ברכת כהנים follows עבודה in the פסוקים (at the beginning of פרשת נשא) where אהרן blesses the nation and then descends the מזבח from completing the קרבנות of the מילואים.

In the absence of a בית המקדש, so תפלה replaces עבודה. There is no doubt (says the חת"ס) that just as a קרבן that is brought without the proper כונה is פיגול and unwanted, so too a כהן's ברכות will not take effect on the מתברכים without the כהן's proper intention. Being that בעו"ה all week long we are busy thinking about our sustenance, and most of our תפלות are, unfortunately, without כונה and תפלה without כונה is like an unwanted קרבן, therefore, this is why we perform ברכת כהנים only on יום טוב, where people are mentally available and they have כונה during davening. [1] [2]

2

The problem with the חתם סופר's approach is that he brings no source to the effect that ברכת כהנים has a דין תפלה, or that כונה is מעכב ברכת כהנים; and even if ברכת כהנים has a דין תפלה -- we still daven anyway, even without כונה, so if ברכת כהנים indeed has a דין תפלה, we should do it anyway even without כונה.

ה' יזכנו לראות כהנים בעבודתם וישראל שרוים על אדמתם בחצרותם ובטירותם

[1] The חת"ס seems to read this reasoning into the words of the רמא; however, the רמא does not say explicitly that this is what he means, וצ"ע

[2] This is also why, says the חת"ס, we bless our children on שבת and יום טוב specifically.

דיון על תשובת הבית אפרים לגבי ברכת כהנים בכל יום

In this post we offer a further analysis of the בית אפרים's תשובה regarding why אשכנזים don't perform ברכת כהנים daily.

1

The first problem with the בית אפרים's approach is that he accepts the current practice as is (even though the פוסקים have written it is wrong) and then tries to justify it after the fact. [1]

2

The second problem is his main thesis that כהנים today are not certainly כהנים. On this שיטה (in the context of returning פדיון הבן coins to the father of the baby because maybe the כהן isn't really a כהן) the ערוך השלחן [2] says that, in his opinion, is is אסור to hear such a thing(!) that would end up decreasing the elevated status of the כהונה today and ח"ו to say so. The ערוה"ש continues that where עזרא ascended from בבל, at which point all כהנים had a כתב יחוס, but some did not, still נחמיה told them that they remain in their חזקה. Certainly today, where no כהנים have a כתב יחוס, a כהן who does not have a כתב יחוס is no worse than anyone else, therefore there is no problem at all. חלילה חלילה to make any ספק or to use this סברא for any צירוף at all.

3

Additionally, the בית אפרים would seem (as far as I am aware) to be a דעת יחיד on this matter. None of the פוסקים make mention of his opinion in their discussion of our topic. In fact, the רמבם, on whom the בית אפרים bases his שיטה, also says (in the opening line of הלכות תפלה וברכת כהנים as well as נשיאת כפים יא:א) to perform ברכת כהנים daily, so evidently the רמבם wouldn't seem to apply this principle of כהני חזקה to ברכת כהנים.

[1] Some may say that every מנהג is sacred and no מנהג may ever be changed. The response to that is that indeed many מנהגים are sacred, and מנהגים play an important role in preserving the מסורת ההלכה and they must be studied in depth (which is the very purpose of this forum), still, not everything that anyone does necessarily has the status of a מנהג; we cannot automatically assume that every popular practice is necessarily halachically legitimate. Oftentimes, popular practices devolve from ignorance (of הלכה in general or of that הלכה in particular) in which case they should have limited halachic bearing. Rather, the origins and development of each individual מנהג must be examined in detail to determine whether or not it is legitimate, and, in the (unusual) instance where it is not, הלכה may decide that a particular מנהג is incorrect or mistaken, as the פוסקים often do themselves (such as the משנה ברורה who says{קכח:קסה}that there are those who do not perform ברכת כהנים on יו"ט that falls on שבת but this מנהג is not the הלכה at all; or, for example, the מחבר who says{או"ח תרה}to eliminate כפרות).

[2] יו"ד שה:נה

תשובת בית אפרים על ברכת כהנים בכל יום לבני אשכנז

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In this post בעז"ה we will analyze the תשובה of the בית אפרים (או"ח שאלה ו) regarding why אשכנזים don't perform ברכת כהנים daily. In the main text of this post, we will present the body of the תשובה and in the footnotes I write some of my comments. A further discussion of the material presented here will בעז"ה appear in a future post.

2

As of the writing of this תשובה, the current מנהג is at least 500 years old. תשבץ קטן (הנהגות of the מהרם of Rothenburg) mentions in passing that ברכת כהנים is no longer performed daily.

This is confirmed by the כל בו (סי' יא) who also writes (סי' קכה) that "we don't perform ברכת כהנים daily because of טורח ציבור [1]".

So, as well, paskened מהריל [2], and the אגור [2] and the דרכי משה [3] and the רמא [3] and the טז [4]; and even though the מגן אברהם frowned upon the רמא, still is seems from what they say that we should not budge from the מנהג.

Even the בית יוסף, who, in other places, is מבטל מנהגים, here he does say to do so, because he himself agrees (says the בית אפרים) that where such is the מנהג, don't be מבטל the מנהג, as they accepted a חומרא upon themselves to טובל, and since at least there is no formal איסור, as the בית יוסף himself agrees, who can possibly be strong enough to be מבטל the מנהג, even were they to be as great as the בית יוסף? Rather, since the מנהג was established by ותיקים (so the בית אפרים assumes) and was practiced in the presence of גדולי הראשונים (the מהרם of Rothenburg, his תלמיד the תשבץ, the כל בו, the אגור, the מהריל, the רמא, the לבוש, the טז, the מגן אברהם and all other גדולי הדורות until our generation) no one made a move about it.

Not only that, says the בית אפרים, even if the reason were to be entirely hidden from us, and certainly there are reasons, and there is no formal איסור, we must listen to what they say and we mustn't change [5].

3

The בית אפרים then goes to great lengths to prove. based on a סוגיא in כתובות דף כד, as well as רמבם in  איסורי ביאה פרק כ הלכה א that כהנים today are only ספק כהנים, unless they have כתבי יחוס.

Now, the גמרא there says that a זר who performs ברכת כהנים is עובר an עשה. This being the case, how can we ask a ספק כהן ספק זר to perform ברכת כהנים and be עובר an עשה?

Not only that, but they will end up making a ברכה לבטלה!

4

Additionally, a זר who blesses is עובר an עשה for a ישראל to be blessed; and ברכת כהנים must be face to face, so where a ישראל performs ברכת כהנים, he is not face to face with the כהנים, so it is obvious that כהני ספק cannot offer a ברכה as a result of 3 איסורים: only a כהן can offer a ברכה; a ישראל is commanded to receive the ברכה from the כהן; and ברכה לבטלה.

5

At this point we reach a simple problem: if we assume that all self-identifying כהנים are possibly זרים then how can we ever perform ברכת כהנים at all? This is especially problematic for those who do so daily!

בית אפרים answers that those who performs ברכת כהנים daily have a חזקה that they were indeed כהנים and no one necessarily took that חזקה away. However, once we've already stopped performing ברכת כהנים daily we lost that חזקה, and we can no longer reinstate it.

As for בני אשכנז who perform ברכת כהנים on יו"ט, they do so as a זכר, just so that the idea and concept of ברכת כהנים should not be forgotten. [6]

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Now, the reason why בני ארץ ישראל ומצרים kept their חזקה is because they were not tossed around from place to place over the course of גלות, as opposed to אשכנזים who were expelled from one country to another so for them there is significant concern of יחוס mix-up.

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Lastly, there is an issue of זלזול against our predecessors: many גדולים מחבבי מצוה who were כהנים such as שארית יוסף ,שך ,סמע never thought to change the status quo.

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A further analysis of the בית אפרים's thesis will be presented in a future post בעז"ה.

[1] טורח ציבור would not seem to be a valid reason to disregard a מצוה. I am puzzled why, according to this reasoning, ברכת כהנים would be the first section of תפלה that must be canceled, as it is the one portion of תפלה which is דאורייתא

[2] (מהריל (תשובה חדשה כז suggests that the reason why ברכת כהנים is not performed daily is because the כהנים have a מנהג to טובל, and in the winter season it is too cold to so. (בית יוסף (או"ח סוף סימן קכח, however, points out that טבילה prior to ברכת כהנים is a חומרא; inability to perform a מצוה in the best possible way should not prevent the מצוה from being performed at all.

[3] The רמא (both in דרכי משה and in שו"ע) says that the reason we do not perform ברכת כהנים is because there is a requirement for the כהנים to be happy and today our minds are too preoccupied with making a living to be happy. The problem with this reasoning is that the רמא does not offer any source for such a  requirement.

[4] The טז does not offer an independent פסק to only perform ברכת כהנים on יו"ט. I am unsure to what פסק the בית אפרים refers.

[5] This would not seem to be in line with the דרך ההלכה. We do not simply follow פסק blindly in all situations, rather, we are enjoined by the very nature of the process of פסיקת ההלכה to give and take, ask questions, and, where we feel ourselves competently qualified, to disagree wherever we perceive the truth to be different than how it is being presented to us. Indeed, this is what the בעלי המסורה engage in on a constant basis throughout all of שס ופוסקים! Such being the case, I don't understand why the בית אפרים is suddenly changing his approach from the approach of the מסורת ההלכה.

[6] This would not seem to be a satisfactory justification for the אשכנזי practice, if, as the בית אפרים said before, it is אסור for a זר to perform ברכת כהנים.

An Interesting Crossover of מנהג אשכנז and מנהג ספרד(ים) Cont'd

In a previous post, we discussed a tune for אדון עולם which was used by both ספרדים and אשכנזים.

ישראל Strauss shared with me that Chazon Frankel (Official Chazon of KAJ from 1949 until his retirement in 1989) often used the very same tune for אדון עולם as well. Chazon Frankel grew up in Hamburg, which was host to a sizable Spanish-Portuguese community; presumably he would have picked it up there and "imported" it to KAJ.