Does One Make a Berachah If He Sees the Sea from Very Far Away or At Night?
The berachah of “oiseh ma’aseh bereishis”, was established for one who hasn’t seen the sea for over 30 days. The Shevet HaLevi maintains that if one sees the sea from far away, and it appears like nothing more than a blue cloud far away in the sky, it is not considered seeing the sea. Only when one sees it from up close and sees the wonders of Hashem’s creation properly should one make a berachah.
Similarly, R’ Shlomah Zalman maintains that if one sees the sea at night, he shouldn’t recite a berachah, as at night one doesn’t really see the niflo’as haboreh [wonders of Hashem’s creation] (see Sefer V’Zois HaBerachah pg. 154).
However, R’ Ben Tzion Felman in his sefer Shlomim Metzion (pg. 547) maintains that one should make a berachah as soon as he can see the sea.
R’ Elyashiv and R’ Chaim Kanievsky also held that it doesn’t matter if one can’t see it so clearly, and even if one isn’t so nispoel [impressed] it doesn’t matter, as in the Gemara and the poskim we find that “on the seas one should make a berachah”, and it doesn’t mention anywhere that one needs to be nispoel.
Practically, since it’s a machlokes one should make a berachah without Shem U’Malchus (R’ Yom Tov Sanger)
If at First Site One Never Made a Berachah, Is It too Late?
A very common scenario that occurs when travelling to the beach is that before one actually arrives, he sees it from a distance from the car window and then it gets covered over by trees etc. and it is out of sight before one realizes that he should have made a berachah.
The halachah is, that if one sees the place where a big nes [miracle] happened to Klal Yisroel he should make a berachah. However, the Biur Halachah (218:1 d.h. bemokam hazeh) writes: If one saw such a place, and then it went out of site and one never made a berachah upon the initial seeing, he can no longer make a berachah. Moreover, even if he sees the same place again a few days later, if it is within 30 days of the original seeing, he shouldn’t make a berachah even if when he initially saw the site, he never made a berachah.
The above is very similar to the halachah, that although one is supposed to recite shehechayanu upon seeing a new fruit, if one saw a new fruit and he never made a berachah the first time, he can no longer make a berachah. We pasken that the berachah is made upon eating and not seeing, so the above isn’t so practical for us, but we see the idea. The question is: Do we say the same thing about the berachah of “oiseh ma’aseh bereishis” which one recites upon seeing a sea?
R’ Ben Tzion Felman zt”l in his sefer Shlomim Metzion (pg. 548) writes that in such a case one loses out on the berachah. R’ Felman writes that: וכן הורה למעשה מרן הגראי"ל שטיינמן זצ״ל בפשיטות – “This is what R’ Aharon Leib Shteinman held with simplicity as well”. However, the Shevet HaLevi held, that even if one didn’t make a berachah upon first sight, he can make a berachah when he sees it a second time, as it’s all considered one big seeing. Similar to what we find in regard to the berachah of shehechayanu on a new fruit, where the halachah is, if one never made a berachah straight away, as long as he is still eating the fruit he can still make the berachah (see Shu”t Betzel HaChochma, Vol. 5, 27:2).
Similarly, I heard in the name of Rabbi Pesach Eliyohu Falk zt"l that one makes the berachah when one has ‘hispaiylus’ from seeing the sea, therefore, it is best to wait until one gets closer and sees the sea properly before making a berachah.
