Page 80 - Chayei Adam LAYOUT sivan 5782

Chayei Adam - K’lal 141 - Laws of the Tekiahs & Berachos & Who is Obligated In Them

]3[ Anyone who is not obligated in [a mitzva] cannot discharge others from
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their obligation. Therefore, since a deaf-mute, shoteh, child, or [even] a deaf
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person who does not hear but can speak are exempt [from hearing shofar] they
cannot blow for others. However, a person who hears but cannot speak is
obligated, since he can hear the shofar blasts. Even though he can’t recite the
beracha, if there is nobody else who knows how to blow, someone else should
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say the beracha and he should blow. A blind person is obligated to hear shofar
and can discharge others [of their obligation, but one should try to fulfill the
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opinion of those who say a blind person is exempt. If, however, he was already
established in this [job], he shouldn’t be replaced. Women are exempt because
[shofar] is a positive time bound mitzva. 18

]4[ One does not fulfill his obligation unless he intends to blow the shofar in
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order to fulfill the mitzva. If, however, he blows just to practice, neither he, nor
those who hear it, fulfill their obligation. One also doesn’t fulfill his obligation

םדו רשב

decorations hung in the succah for a different capacities, a shoteh is generally exempt from
purpose on chol ha’moed). See further, 146:45 mitzvos.
for further discussion.
14. Although an older boy must hear
11. Mishna Rosh Hashana 29a. However, shofar even before his bar mitzva, his
this only refers to one who is intrinsically obligation then is only by rabbinic decree, in
exempt from the mitzva; if he has already order to train him to do the mitzvos when he
discharged his obligation, he can blow shofar, comes of age.
recite kiddush, etc. for others since he has a 15. Although he is obligated to perform
responsibility (called ‘arvus’) to ensure that his mitzvos, since he cannot possibly hear the
fellow Jew also fulfills his obligation. shofar, the Torah exempts him. Accordingly, he
may not blow shofar for others. (Kol Bo,
12. i.e. one who neither speak nor hear. Rashbatz, and codified in Shulchan Aruch) See
however Aruch Hashulchan who writes that he
13. A ‘shoteh’ is a person of inferior should blow shofar for himself.
ט
intellectual capacity or is insane, the exact
halachic parameters for which is beyond the 16. Whether he is blowing for others, or
scope of this work. Due to his inferior mental only for himself. י

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