Since women are allowed to blow shofar though not for men, what would the halacha be if a person was hearing a shofar and wanted to be yotsi but did not know if the baal tekiya was a man or woman? And if he thought he was yotsi but then found out the baal tokea was a woman, does that mean he was not yotsi even bideved? Thanks!
David Goldman, USA
These are very interesting questions!
1) I suggest that since there is only a small minority of Ba'alei Tekiyah who are women, one does not have to be concerned that the person one is hearing blowing the Shofar is a woman.
One can compare this to the following Din in Hilchos Tereifos: One is not obligated to check an animal, after Shechitah, to determine whether it suffers from one of the 18 Tereifos, because we have a rule that the majority of animals are kosher. However, one does have to check the lung of the animal after the Shechitah to make sure it is not a Tereifah. The Mefarshim explain that the difference is because a significant minority of animals ("Mi'ut ha'Matzuy") possess a Terifah in the lung. The Mishkenos Yakov maintains that 10% is considered a significant minority. Therefore, it seems to me that since there is less than a 10% chance that the person you are listening to blowing the Shofar is a woman, it follows that one is not obligated to check this out.
2) He was not Yotzei b'Di'eved. The proof is from the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 589:1, who states that anyone who is not obligated in a Mitzvah cannot do the Mitzvah so that others should hear it and be Yotzei. Then, in 589:3, he states that women are exempt from hearing the Shofar. Putting these two Halachos together shows that one is not Yotzei b'Di'eved if one hears the Shofar-blowing of a woman.
B'Hatzlachah,
Dovid