Halacha position: I felt an earthquake, should I bless? - Walla! Judaism

Ruins after the earthquake in the city of Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 12, 2023 (Photo: Reuters)

Many times in our daily lives halachic questions arise and topical doubts arise.

Rabbi Shai Tahan, head of the Sha'ari Ezra community and head of Beit Erzi HaLebanon, makes the laws accessible to us and answers questions asked in the Beit Midrash and outside of it.

And this week: when should you bless when you feel an earthquake.

:

Hello.

Where I live, we felt the earthquake well last week, even though it was a very light one.

And thank God that we were not harmed at all, neither bodily harm nor financial harm.

And I would like to ask what is the degree of the strength of the earthquake for which the blessing prescribed by our sages must be blessed?

:

Hello to you, and I was happy to hear that you are safe and your home is safe and all that is with you is safe.

Indeed, the Sages determined that one should bless when a person feels an earthquake, and this ruling was brought forth in the Mishnah (Berakhot 9:1) which took place that one should bless the horrors, and Rashi (Page 10:1) interpreted the horrors as the earthquake, and so did Rabbi Ovadia of Bartanura (chapter 9 Mishna 2) interpreted: horrors - that the earth shakes and makes noise'. And the wording of the

blessing is: "Blessed are you, O Lord our God, the King of the world, who did a deed in the beginning, and if he wanted, he could say: Blessed are you, O God our God, the King of the world, he forgot and his prowess is full of eternity." "H. Mark of the coordinator of section A).

And here there is a question to find out, why are there two blessings here and when should one bless in one language and when in the other?

More than that, the Mishnah wrote the blessing 'Forget him and his valor is everlasting' (although in the Gemara they also used the second blessing), while the Shulchan Aruch first wrote the blessing 'doing an act of Genesis' as the main part of the blessing.

It is true that the mishna clearly explained in this (section 6) that one can bless any blessing he chooses, but he must not bless both as one,

However, according to the grains of the field, there are two blessings here that are said in different situations.

And it depends on the intensity and strength of the shaking.

On a slight tremor he will bless 'doing a deed in the beginning', while if the tremor was strong and powerful he will bless 'forget and his valor is everlasting'.

And he also wrote in the book Nachelat Zvi, and he dreamed from the words of the Jerusalemite (quoted in Tosaf Baruchot Mat, 1 D5 al) that he learned from the Mishnah that it was written that this blessing should also be said over the spirits, and they explained in this that we were spirits like those who came in anger, that is, with great force, but if they came in peace, he says 'Blessed is he who does the act of Genesis'.

And he brought them in the Shu'at of Rabbi Akiva Yosef (Och Peg) and wrote to disagree about them, and considered that it is necessary to bless 'doing the act of Genesis' even for a slight and weak tremor, and learned from the mishna that wrote 'zoot' that the meaning is a slight vibration as in It is written in the Book of Esther (chapter 8, verse 9) that Mordechai "did not rise up and did not move", and not as the judges wrote above, we mean a strong earthquake.

And he also concluded from the Halacha in Shu'at Shebat

Hekhati (part 5, Siman Mu) that the conclusion of the judges who did not agree on the intensity of the noise means that every perceptible tremor is to be blessed even though it was not strong and there was no danger in it.

He did not feel the earthquake at all, but he saw that the objects were moving, which was an indication and a sign that there would be an earthquake even then, and one should bless.

Therefore, it seems: one should trust these gentlemen and bless every earthquake regardless of its strength.

David Berger, in collaboration with Shuba Israel

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