There is an obligation to hear the
Megillah of Ester on Purim. Actually, the obligation is to hear it twice,
evening and morning.
So, can you fulfil the obligation
over Zoom?
The issue has received significant
Halachic attention, as has related questions; can you amplify Torah reading
during large weekday services, or respond 'Amen' to a blessing said over the
telephone and other related cases.
The significant Sugya is in Sukkah
51b which discusses a practice of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria; a
Synagogue so large that people at the back couldn't hear what was being said at
the front. A flag system was used and when people saw the flag, they would
respond Amen. This is called an 'Orphaned Amen,' (see also Brachot 47a). Rashi
and Tosafot in Brachot state that this is acceptable since the people knew
which blessing was being said, even if they didn't hear the blessing, but the Shulchan
Arukh (OH 124:8) states that this only works for general blessings but that the
specifically aural Mitzvot (e.g. Shofar and Megillah) cannot be performed unless
sound is heard.
Then came the invention of
electricity and specifically the possibility of using microphones and
amplifiers.
The two modern approaches are articulated
most clearly by Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Minhat Shlomo 1:9), and Reb Moshe
Feinstein (IM OH 2:108).
Reb Auerbach states that Halahcically
significant hearing can only happen as a result of a mechanical process where
the vibrations caused as a sound is produced are in a direct chain of causation
with the vibrations that hit the eardrum. As such, electrical transmission of
sound cannot be relied on. Auerbach's position - and he makes this explicit,
acknowledging the pain this position may cause - means that hearing aids cannot
be used during Megillah reading. If a person needs a hearing aid to hear, says
Auerbach, they cannot fulfil these Mitzvot, and should not say the blessing.
In contradistinction, Reb Feinstein
argues that sound is essentially a wave pattern, and since that wave pattern
can be captured (by a microphone) and relayed (by a speaker), it is possible to
say that a transmitted sound is the same sound as the produced
sound. This would allow Mitzvot to be performed on the basis of transferred
sound. He points out that the vibrating air molecules at the point of the
production of a sound are never the same molecules as vibrate against our
eardrum as we hear sound. Sound is always being transferred and relayed from
one medium to another.
Rav Waldenberg (best known for his
work in medical ethics) uses Feinstein's understanding in a position that
supportive of a Rabbi who broadcasts the Megillah reading throughout a
hospital so as to enable patients to hear it (Tzitz Eliezer 8:11).
I find Feinstein's articulation of
the nature of sound, at the very least, reliable in times of a pandemic. In
fact, I think you can go further than this. And indeed we should.
I do not accept Rav Auerbach's
analysis of the nature of hearing. Hearing is not a function of the eardrum, it
is a function of the nervous system. All hearing arises as a result of
electronic signals firing inside our nerves and brain. Feinstein has to be right
that the central question is - are the signals that are being fired along our
nerves the same signals that a Megillah reader would produce if we were indeed
standing next to such a person? I find the Auerbach's position - which states
that a person with a cochlear implant does not hear! - errant, as well as needlessly
harsh.
Of course, in an ideal world, a
person should be in the same room as a Megillah reader, but I hold that this
isn't the only way in which one considers Halachically reliable sound, this
year, in the context of Covid.
At New London Synagogue we will have
a Zoomed Megillah reading (also streamed to our www.facebook.com/newlondonsyn/live page. This system may be
relied upon by anyone unable to personally attend a Synagogue in person.
See
"Fulfilling
Mitzvot Through Electronic Hearing Devices", Chaim Jachter and
Ezra Frazer, Gray Matter
volume 2 pp. 237–244. ISBN 1-933143-10-X
https://web.archive.org/web/20080511204358/http://www.yasharbooks.com/grayexcerpt2.pdf
Also, Rabbi Jeffrey Fox on the
Auerbach position
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