One of the students of the Rav Shapira who perished in the Holocaust wrote a lengthy teshuva that went even a step farther then his rebbe. Rabbi Nata Shlomo Shlisil, hy”d (published in ירשת פליטה סימן י, a collection of teshuvot of the גדולים of Hungary who perished in the Shoah) argued in support of Rabbi Litvin that even the Shofar can be fulfilled over the telephone.
Rav Nata Shlomo Shilisil, hy”d
Rabbi Shlisil goes so far as to describe how you could have two non-Jews holding phones in different cities on Rosh ha-Shanna for the Shofar, or Shabbat for Kiddush. His analysis begins with trying to find a way for someone who is in jail to fulfill the Mitzva of Shofar. It appears that his teshuva was written in the midst of the Holocaust while Jews were in Concentration Camps. See this brief selection where he refers to the Jewish People struggling in jails, deserts and forests. You can feel the empathy of this great posek who is trying to help his fellow Jews fulfill Mitzvot.…
Conclusion of the Yam ha-Gadol, Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Toledano, Cairo, 1941
In the 1930’s and early 40’s a group of poskim were addressing the question of using the telephone from every corner of the globe.
First we meet Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Toledano (wiki) from Cairo who published an important teshuva in this regard (ים הגדול סימן כט). He begins by pointing out that we should not think of the sound coming over the phone like אוב וידעוני, but that it really is the sound of the person on the other end of the line. He concludes, like Rabbi Litvin, that one can even fulfill the obligation of the Shofar over the phone.
Excerpt from Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Frummer, Poland, 1938
Then, Rabbi Aryeh Tzvi Frummer (wiki) from Poland (שו”ת ארץ צבי ח”א סימן כג ,1938) distinguishes between the gramophone, which is recorded in advance, and the telephone which is the current voice of the person who is recited the beracha or the tefila. Since it is happening at the same time, the one at a distance can fulfill their obligation. He also emphasizes that a voice heard over a telephone should not be considered like the voice of אוב.
Finally, Rabbi Aaron Milevsky (wiki, in Hebrew), while serving as the Chief Rabbi of Montevideo, Uruguay also addressed this question (1941, שו”ת מנחת אהרון סימן יח). He, like Rav Kook and Rav Chaim Elazara Shapira, distinguished between Shofar and Tefila and decided to read the Megila on the radio. We will come back to Rav Milevski when we analyze Rav Uziel’s dissenting opinion.
The question asked of Rabbi Milevsky, Montivideo, 1941. Note: he actually read the Megilla on the radio.
These three gedolim from Poland, Cairo and Montivideo all understood that even someone at a great distance could fulfill an obligation for another. They all seem to think that the actual voice is being heard on the other end of the phone. They are not bothered by, or perhaps not interested in, the technical question of how the voice gets transmitted. It is not until Rav Shlomo Zalman that poskim begin to ask that question. Next time we will look at a fascinating teshuva by a key student of Rav Elazar Shapira who went even further than his Rebbe.
Shofar vs. Tefila: Rav Kook and Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira
The next two significant poskim who addressed this issue were Rav Avraham Yitzchak haKohen Kook (1934 שו”ת אורח משפט אורח חיים סימן מח) z”l, and Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira (1930’s שו”ת מנחת אלעזר חלק ב סימן עב) z”l. These two great Rabbis had a huge influence on the Jewish community of the early 1900’s.
Rav Kook, trained in Volozhin and served the Lithuanian Jewish community until 1904 when he moved to Yaffo in Ottoman Palestine. He would eventually establish Yeshivat Mercaz ha-Rav and serve as the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine beginning in 1921. Rav Kook passed away in 1935. Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira, a scion of the Spira family, served as the Rebbe in Munkatch from 1903 until his passing in 1937. Together, Rav Kook and the Munkatcher Rebbe wrote on every area of Jewish life, Jewish law and Jewish thought.…
It appears that the first major posek to address the question of using the telephone to fulfill mitzvot at a distance was Rabbi Chaim Yehuda Leib Litvin (העילוי מסאָסני, who died in 1903, Brody) in a teshuva sent to the Rabbinic leadership of the German Jewish community of Frankfurt am Maine (with particular mention of his good friend יאקב פוזנא – not sure who that is and why his name is spelled with an א instead of an ע?) in August of 1885. This teshuva was printed in his שערי דעה תשובה עד.
His straightforward teshuva concluded with the following paragraph.
He believed that in an emergency situation (שעת הדחק) that everyone must agree that even the Shofar can be fulfilled over a telephone. His approach set the tone for the vast majority of Poskim (with the exception of Rav Uziel) until Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach published his response in 1948 (See מנחת שלמה חלק א סימן ט). Rav Shlomo Zalman made his name in part as an expert on the status of electricity and his authority in this area gave him the ability to shift the Halakhic discourse entirely. Over the next few essays, I would like to show an alternative mesorah to this question that may, sadly, be essential in the near future.
