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.

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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].

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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!

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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.

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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.