Q&A: The Chazon Ish’s Reasoning
The Chazon Ish’s Reasoning
Question
In another thread here, I cited the Chazon Ish (Orach Chayim 29:4), who explains that the commandment of the shofar is the hearing, and each person fulfills it himself by hearing it. So there is no category here at all of one person discharging another’s obligation. Nevertheless, a blower who is himself obligated is still required in order for the sound of the shofar to count as the sound of a commandment action (the sound has to be an object of mitzvah, just as tzitzit must be tzitzit of mitzvah, or a sukkah, or matzah, for example).
And the question is: if so, why does the blower need to have intention to discharge the listener’s obligation (as explained in Rosh Hashanah 29a)? The Chazon Ish explained that in order for the sound of the shofar to count as a mitzvah-sound with respect to the listener, there must be intent to include him; that is, it is not enough that it be a mitzvah-sound with respect to the blower, it also has to be so with respect to the listener.
His claim, essentially, is that there can be a sound that is an object of mitzvah for one person but not for another.
Does that seem plausible to you? How can there be two different legal statuses, in reality, on one object? Is this a known Talmudic line of reasoning that I’m unfamiliar with?
Answer
See here a review written by someone who independently wrote the same idea: https://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/2658
He does not mean to say that this is an object of mitzvah for one person and not for another, but rather that intention is needed so that the blowing be related to the listener and it be considered that he heard the sound of a shofar. But not intention to discharge his obligation. Without that intention, he is considered like someone who heard on his own and not from the blower. But that is indeed difficult.
There would have been room to interpret the intentions mentioned in the Talmud differently, but in Maimonides himself it implies that this is intent to discharge one’s obligation.