Halakhah Study Group 023

1:
The general rule is that there must be no break between the reciting of a blessing and that for which it was recited. For example, if one recites a blessing over some food one must start eating the food before speaking. If one recites the blessing over the tallit one must put it on before speaking. And so forth. This is called עובר לעשייה – performing the act immediately after the blessing. However, once one has started the performance of the mitzvah (for example) within reason one does not have to refrain from doing something extraneous during the whole time that it is being performed. For example, if I have recited the blessing over fixing a mezuzzah on my doorframe I must start nailing the mezuzzah immediately after the blessing. Once I have started nailing, however, I may say something extraneous – such as 'Give me another nail, please'. The case of the blessing over the Torah is no different. One must start reading from the Torah immediately after reciting the blessing. (This, of course, assumes that it is the person reciting the blessing himself or herself who is actually reading from the Torah.)

2
Paragraph 2 of section 140 deals with a different situation: I recited the blessing and immediately thereafter I started reading from the Torah. After a couple of verses I say something extraneous: this is not considered to be an impermissible break. It makes no difference whether I say something like 'Is this an error in the Torah scroll?' or something like 'I'm going to sneeze!' None of this is considered to be a break.

3:
In one of the shiurim in the Mishnah Study Group I had occasion to explain the following important matter. I wrote: We must distinguish here between 'lekhatĥilah' [לכתחילה] and 'bedi'avad' [בדעבד]. 'Lekhatĥilah' means the law as it should be properly carried out; 'bedi'avad' means to indicate how the law should be nevertheless be applied, if a person did not carry out the law properly in the first place. So, ideally ('lekhatĥilah'), there must be no such break during the reading of an aliyyah and the reader should make every effort not to do so. But if the necessity for a break arises, 'bedi-avad' there is no need to start over from the beginning again, and the interrupted reading is legitimate.

4:
We can now turn our attention to paragraph 3 of section 140. The halakhic question that arises here is what can be expected to be going on in the mind of the person reciting the blessing before the Torah reading: does he or she think that they are reciting the blessing over the Torah in general or over what will be read in their specific aliyyah in particular? Paragraph 3 gives two halakhic opinions. One (the first) assumes that someone reciting the blessing has a general mitzvah in mind: he thinks to himself that he is reciting a blessing over the Torah. The second opinion assumes that the person reciting the blessing is thinking specifically of their own aliyyah. There is an inevitable logic that will ensue here in the event that when the reading starts (or even after it has started) and it becomes apparent that it is from another place that one should be reading. According to the first view there should be no reason to recite the blessing all over again, since the honoree was thinking of the Torah in general. It is the second view that would require one to start over and recite the blessing again – over the correct passage. Authorities subsequent to the Shulĥan Arukh typically could not leave open what Karo had decided was not important enough to decide (though his own preference was for the second opinion). These אחרונים aĥaronim decided in favour of the second opinion which requires the reading (and the blessing) to start over.

This concludes our study of section 140. Next time we shall continue with section 141.