1) Reuven is walking down the street, and he sees a hat lying there nearby the bins. He bends down, picks up the hat and finds a name and number inside. He brings it home, calls the number and tracks down the owner, and the owner comes to retrieve the hat. The owner then realizes that this is the hat he just threw in the bin, does the “finder” fulfill the mitzvah of hashovas aveidah, or has he simply wasted his time?
Many people answered something similar to the above: “If we say ‘machshava is mitztzareif lemaaseh’ so kal v’chomer ‘maaseh mitztarief lema’aseh’”.
Iy’H next week, we will bring a fascinating machlokes about what happens if someone finds out after many years that his tefillin were pasul, and if he gets reward for mitzvas tefillin etc. I feel that the answer to the above will very much depend on what we bring next week.
2) Why is there no berachah on the mitzvah of hashovas aveidah?
Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank strengthens this question by noting that the Shu’t Rashba (1:18) explains that no berachah is made prior to performing the mitzvah of giving tzedokah because of a concern that the poor person may refuse to accept it. In the case of returning a lost object, this logic would not apply since the item already belongs to the individual to whom it is being returned, and he will surely accept it. Nevertheless, Rav Frank points out that it is possible that the owner of the object had already been me’ya’eish from ever recovering it, in which case there is no obligation to return it to him, and due to this concern, we do not make a berachah.
Alternatively, he cites Rabbeinu Bechaye, who maintains that blessings were not established for the performance of logical mitzvos, a category which includes the returning of lost objects.
3) How is it possible for a regular Jewish woman to permissibly marry her husband’s full brother via chuppah and kiddushin, not through yibum?
Although the Torah forbids a man to marry his brother’s wife, if his brother dies without children, he has a mitzvah to marry the widow in a process known as yibum (25:5). The Gemara rules that after he does so, she becomes his full-fledged wife in every way. Specifically, she is no longer prohibited to him as his brother’s wife, and he must give her a get if he wishes to divorce her. Thus, even though the circumstances that created the yibum exception have passed, he is allowed to remarry her after their divorce as long as he is not a Kohen (Vayikra 21:7) and she has not married anyone else in the interim (Devorim 24:1-4). This subsequent marriage gives us a case of a man who permissibly marries his brother’s wife via chuppah and kiddushin. (R’ Ozer Alport)
Another case would be if the two brothers were geirim.
4) If a narah me’urosah [betrothed girl] is violated in the field, her assailant is put to death, but she is not punished, for he did so against her will, and although she screamed for help, there was nobody to hear her cries and rescue her (Devorim 22:25-27). As the man may only be killed if he sinned in the presence of two witnesses who warned him, why didn’t the witnesses come to her aid, and how can the Torah say that there was nobody present in the field?
The witnesses were on the other side of the river. (Today, I would wonder if “hasrah” can be done through video and speakers). (Sheilah Yunger)
Another answer, which the Moshav Z’keinim suggests, is that the witnesses came in the middle of the sin, which was sufficient for the purposes of warning and testifying against the man but too late to save the woman.
5) The Torah teaches (24:5) that if a man marries a new wife, he does not serve in the army for one year. Rashi writes that this law only applies if his wife is new, but if he remarries a woman that he had previously divorced, he is not entitled to this exemption. If a man marries a woman and divorces her shortly thereafter, only to remarry her before one year has passed from their original wedding date, does he go out to battle?
Rav Eliyohu Gutmacher (In his Hagaos to Sotah 8:3) argues that it is clear that in this case, the man would be exempt from serving in the army since his remarriage occurred within one year of the time of his original marriage, which exempted him from serving in the army during that year on the condition that he is married, which he is once again. However, the S’fas Emes is uncertain about the law in this case, as perhaps the fact that he divorced his wife ended the one-year exemption to which he was entitled, and now that he is remarrying her, she is no longer a new wife who exempts him from army service. (R’ Ozer Alport)