The general approach of the major poskim before WWII was lenient and followed the lead of Rabbi Litvin. Some were not prepared to permit Shofar, but all  Mitzvot that were based on hearing were seen as obviously permissible on the phone.

The main dissenting voice at this time was Rabbi Ben Zion Uziel. He wrote one teshuva about recorded material (שו”ת משפטי עוזיאל כרך א – אורח חיים סימן ה) and one about synchronous use of the telephone (שו”ת משפטי עוזיאל כרך א – אורח חיים סימן כא). He had no patience to seriously consider the possibility that one should even answer Amem on a gramophone. However, when it came to the telephone he was at least willing to consider that one might be able to fulfill their obligations in this way.

He points out that every time we make a sound there are two outcomes of our voice: 1) The “natural – טבעי” voice, and 2) the reverberation of the echo (הד הקול). He makes it clear that certainly for Shofar this would be a fundamental problem. He then concludes his teshuva with the following two sentences:

ולפי זה קול התיליפון והראדיא שהוא קולט ומרכז את הד הקול ולא הקול עצמו הוא ודאי קול הברה ואין השומעו יוצא ידי מצות שופר. 

And according to this, the sound of the telephone and the radio, which gathers and focuses the reverberation of the echo (הד הקול) and not the voice itself is certainly a voice of havara and those who hear it can not fulfill their the Mitzvah of Shofar.

This claim is the same as many before him, but then he takes another step that he never justifies:

והוא הדין לכל ברכות וקדושה שהרי הד קול איננו קול האדם ואין יוצאים ידי חובה ולא עונין אמן וקדושה אלא בקולו של אדם בן דעה ובן מצוה.

And so is the law regarding all blessings and kedusha – for behold the reverberation of the echo and is not the voice of a person and we do not fulfill our obligations and do not answer Amen or kedusha except to the voice of a person with intellect who is obligated.

Rav Uziel is making a quasi-scientific claim that has no source in Halakha. What he says is true in a certain sense, and that is the path that Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerback will take, but he does not have the vocabulary to explain what he means when he says that the sound of a person over the phone is, “איננו קול האדם – not the voice of a person”. It is not obvious that you can not fulfill berachot or kedusha over the phone just because something about the voice is no longer human.

Rabbi Aaron Milevsky, in his teshuva (מנחת אהרון סימן יח), refers to this extension of Rav Uziel and simply says, “זהו תימא – and this is a wonderment.” He then concludes by noting that his colleague showed him the teshuva of the מנחת אלעזר that reached the very same conclusion.

In June of 1942, just a year after Rav Milevsky printed his work, Rav Uziel published a teshuva by Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg that takes apart Rav Milevsky’s approach, משפטי עוזיאל מהדורא תנינא סימן לד אות ג . Rav Waldenberg thinks that it is simply disgusting to imagine Jews sitting by the radio on Rosh ha-Shanna and can not imagine such a scenario. He also offers a Halakhic explanation for Rav Uziel’s extension from Shofar to other Mitzvot. The argument that Rav Waldenberg makes in support of Rav Uziel serves as the scaffolding for Rav Shlomo Zalman – despite that fact that Rav Waldernberg himself will be more lenient at a later date.

He wrote:

אבל בכל דברי תורה ותפילה ודאי צריך לשומעם מפי בר חיובא ולא מפי קטן…וכל שכן מפי גלי אויר שהם נושאים את הקול למרחקים גדולים ויוצאים מגוף מת של מכשיר הראדיו…

However, for all Torah and Tefila matters you certainly must hear them from someone who is fully obligated and not a minor…And all the more [you can not fulfill your obligations through] radio waves that carry your voice to great distances and try to fulfill from an inanimate device like a radio.

 

Rav Waldenberg and Rav Uziel together make the claim that the voice coming from the radio is simply not the voice of a person at all. Therefore, no Mitzvot of speech can ever be fulfilled in this manner. This idea finds expression in the work of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in his watershed teshuva in 1948, to which we will turn next week.