The tosfos(Riva) on the bottom says that if someone hold the sefer torah "orum"(barehanded) he is not yotzeh the mitzvah he did - namely if he read in it he was not yotzeh, the question was posed today by Mr. Heshy Augenabum in our chaburah, if he leined for a tzibur while holding the sefer barehanded would the others be yotzeh and what would the reason be either yes or no?
Thank You
Moshe Deutsch
Kew Gardens Hills - Queens - New York
1) Tosfos does not write in the name of the Riva that if he reads in it he is not yotzeh. Tosfos writes that he does not receive reward for the reading. It seems that he is yotzeh the Mitzvah but does not receive a sachar. I want to say that if he read a parsha in the Torah in such a way, he is yotzeh the reading bedieved and is not obliged to read it again. The person who holds the Sefer Torah with his bare hands shows a lack of respect for the Mitzvah and for the Sefer Torah, so he loses his reward but he did read the parsha and he is yotzeh bedieved. According to this the tzibur would also be yotzeh since the reading was effective. The Mishneh Berurah 147:1, when he cites this Halacha, also writes that he does not receive reward from the Mitzvah, but he does not write that he has not fulfilled the Mitzvah.
2) I think I have support for this, bs'd, from the Perush of one of the Rishonim here; Rabeinu Avraham min HaHar; who writes that when the Gemara says that he is buried naked without the Mitzvah this means that the Mitzvah does not protect him at all. Usually Mitzvos guard us. This Mitzvah of reading from the sefer Torah bare handed is a Mitzvah that he has done, and he is not obliged to read it again, but the Mitzvah will provide no protection for him after he dies.
KOL TUV
Dovid Bloom
That sounds docheck - so he is yotzeh the mitzvah but doesn't get schar???
im gonna get tomatoes thrown at me if I say that on Shabbos
I saw the rabeinu Avrohom min hohor and I took I to mean a drush thing (esoteric) not al derech hapshat
Reb Moshe, tell them to throw the tomatoes at me instead! There is such a thing as a Mitzvah that one does not get Sechar for. The Me'iri writes (in his Pesichah before Maseches Berachos, page 18, DH u'Kevar Bi'arnu, in the standard edition of Beis ha'Bechirah, published by Machon ha'Talmud ha'Yisraeli; also see his Hakdamah to Maseches Nedarim, page 4, DH v'Ulam, where he writes at length about whether Mitzvos require Kavanah or not), that even according to the opinion that Mitzvos do not need Kavanah, one is Yotzei only b'Di'eved without Kavanah, but he does not receive Sechar for the Mitzvah.
Dovid Bloom
interesting its Sunday morning here so I will look a little later
do we hold like this merii?
does everyone agree with this?
can u enlighten me in the next gemoro(rav yannai) what the sefer torah looked like to b able to pull out the mitpachas can't b like either todays sfardi Or ashkenazI sefer(ashkenaz for other reasons in the gemoro or rishonI'm) just looking for a metziyus that fits
also, that seems to be a chiddush in the sugya of mitzvos tzrichos kavana
1) I do not know if we hold like the Me'iri (although see what I write below in #2), but I did find that the Netziv writes, in Meromei Sadeh at the very end of Maseches Chagigah 27a, differently than the Me'iri. He is commenting on the Gemara at the very end of Chagigah which says that even the sinners of Yisrael are full of Mitzvos like a pomegranate. He writes that, for example, there are Mitzvos that people do for pleasure and still get reward for this, because Mitzvos do not require Kavanah.
2) I could not find any of the Rishonim who discuss directly the issue addressed by the Me'iri, but also no Rishon disagrees with the Me'iri, so I think we will have to conclude that the Halachah follows the Me'iri. In addition, my intention in citing the Me'iri was to prove that one can have a Mitzvah without a reward, so even if we should say that in the Sugya of Mitzvos Tzerichos Kavanah the Halachah does not follow the Me'iri, it may still be that, in general, everyone agrees to the Me'iri's concept that it is possible to do a Mitzvah and not receive reward.
(By the way, I found that Rav Mordechai Gifter zt"l cites the Me'iri, in Shi'urei Da'as, page 163, DH v'Iy Efshar.)
3) Somebody pointed out to me that Rav Elchanan Wasserman zt"l Hy"d has an even more extreme position on this than the Me'iri, at least in terms of the Sugya of Mitzvos Tzerichos Kavanah. In Kovetz He'oros, Yevamos 36:4, he writes that according to the opinion that Mitzvos do not need Kavanah (and therefore someone who blows the Shofar merely for the musical pleasure is also Yotzei), the Tikun and the purpose of the Mitzvah has been achieved. It is as if the Mitzvah was performed automatically without anyone doing it, but the person who performed this blowing of the Shofar has not carried out the commandment of Hash-m, since he merely wanted the musical pleasure from the Shofar, not the Mitzvah. However, he does not have to blow the Shofar again, because the Mitzvah has been performed so there is no point in repeating it.
In the framework of the Sugya of Mitzvos Tzerichos Kavanah, this goes further than the Me'iri, since the Me'iri writes that he is Yotzei b'Di'eved but receives no reward, while Rav Elchanan adds that the person himself did no Mitzvah but it is as if the Mitzvah took place by itself. However, in terms of what I was looking for (namely, a Mitzvah without a reward), it may not be relevant because, according to Rav Elchanan, he did not even do a Mitzvah.
4) There is a rather surprising opinion of the Re'ah, cited by the Beis Yosef on the Tur (end of Orach Chayim 589), that even if someone screams out that he does not want to do the Mitzvah, he is still Yotzei. (The discussion there is about the Mitzvah of blowing the Shofar.) However, it seems obvious to me (I thought that I recalled seeing the Turei Even to Rosh Hashanah 28b cited as saying this, but I cannot find it at the moment) that the Re'ah will agree that he will not receive a reward for this Mitzvah.
5) Concerning Rebbi Yanai, it seems to me that it is not necessary to say that the Sefer Torah of the Gemara is different from our Sefer Torah, but rather that the Mitpachas is different from our Mitpachas. The Mitpachas is a cloth that is wrapped around the Sefer Torah (see Mishnah Berurah OC 147:20). It can be wound around the Sefer Torah. The point is that the Sefer Torah must remain stationary and the Mitpachas wrapped around it, not that the Mitpachas stays still and the Sefer Torah is rotated, since this shows disrespect for the Sefer Torah.
This is the same reasoning as that behind the previous Gemara that one should not hold the Sefer Torah with bare hands, since this shows disrespect for the Torah (and if one shows disrespect for the Sefer Torah, he receives no reward for the Mitzvah that he was performing with it, even though it might be classified as a Mitzvah, as I wrote above).
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom