By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com
A number of years ago, Sinai Academy placed an advertisement in the Jewish newspapers for people to come to a special siyum. A young man from a secular Russian family was making a Siyum on Bava Basra. The young man had come under the influence of a very special Rebbe that travelled every day from Lakewood to Bensonhurst. This unsung hero has an uncanny ability to form high level Talmidei Chachomim out of Russian Jewish young men,
At the siyum, there were two speeches made that still reverberate through this author’s mind. The first was made by the father of the mesayem. He spoke about how enamoured he was by his son’s experiences and his son’s learning of the Talmud that he himself had started learning and had just undergone a Bris Milah.
The eclectic audience that had gathered, people that came together just to honor Torah and those who were mesayem it, was electrified. They came because there was an ad in the papers about people new to the Torah way of life who were making a siyum and the people in the audience came to be mechazek this family. They were unaware of what the father had just undergone. Mi ka’amcha Yisroel.
The next speaker was Rav Avrohom Schorr shlita. His words were, “Do you think this gathering of seventy-five people here is impressive?? It is not. What happened here tonight should have filled every seat in MADISON SQUARE GARDENS!! All of Klal Yisroel should be celebrating!!”
THE HALACHA
Whoever was present will most certainly never forget those two speeches. But the question arises as to what the halacha is under these circumstances. Does an adult who receives a bris milah later in life recite Gomel?
A friend of mine, Rav Shimon HaKohain Brescher alav hashalom, had posed this question to Maran Rav Chaim zatzal. This shailah and similar ones to it appear in a sefer published post-humously by his children entitled Shamanu Kain Ra’inu – on page 355 of the work.
As noted in the footnotes to the sefer, apparently, this particular question is a debate between Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l and Rav Chaim zt”l. Rav Chaim ruled that an adult undergoing Bris Milah does not bentsch gomel, while Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l ruled that he does (see Minchas Shlomo Tanina #60). It is interesting to note that a Ger who undergoes Milah does not bentch gomel according to all opinions. How so? Because even according to Rav Shlomo Zalman zatal, when he underwent it – he was not yet chayav in Mitzvos.
Reb Shimon had also asked Rav Chaim zatzal if someone had been diagnosed with cancer r”l but was told by doctors that it appears that it is no longer present and will not return, – is this enough to bentch gomel on. Rav Chaim answered that such a person should recite Gomel.
He further asked what about cancers that vary in severity and if there was no five year indication yet and the percentages of the disease returning is calculated by the doctors in one particular form of it as approximately five percent or so – does one still recite it? Rav Chaim answered that it should be said without shaim and malchus.
Reb Shimon further asked when it could be recited with full shaim uMalchus and he answered that when [he is told] that it is a certain recovery.
To read more of Rav Chaim’s Torah go to orchotyosher.org
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One Response
Bentching gomel for a choleh is only will there was a sakana (one does not bentch gomel after recovering from a common cold).
To bentch gomel after a bris implies that the mitzva placed the person in a sakana.
Although the mitzva is structured to cause a bit of tzar (therefore she’he’chiyonu is not recited), but not to cause sakana.
In fact, in situations where there is a level of sakana, the mitzva is delayed till the risk passes.
Yagdil Torah v’yadir.