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Why can you make a bracha on a stolen lulav after doing shinui maisa? The shiur develops the Rambam (רמב"ם)'s yesod that agudah isn't about beauty—it creates a new cheftza of nanuim (waving), adding a dimension to netilas lulav. This transforms the stolen object into a different mitzvah (מצוה) cheftza, resolving both the Magen Avrohom's question and the Gemara (גמרא)'s difficulty.
This shiur, delivered in 1995 on Sukkah 30b, addresses two fundamental questions about the laws of lulav and the halachic status of agudah (binding). The first kasha comes from the Magen Avrohom on the Mechaber's ruling that if one steals an esrog and performs shinui maisa (a transformative act), he is yotzei the mitzvah (מצוה) but should not make a bracha (av lo yevarech). The Magen Avrohom asks: the Gemara (גמרא) on amud beis clearly says "v'likta v'shinui ashem" (let it be acquired through shinui), implying that shinui is sufficient to permit making a bracha. Why then does the Mechaber rule otherwise? The second kasha arises from the Gemara on daf lamed alef, which discusses sitting in a stolen sukkah (sukkah gazulah). The Gemara states "ein lo d'meitzim b'vad"—there's no problem with it, implying one can make a bracha. Yet this seems difficult: whether one acquires through shinui maisa or through takanas hashavim (the enactment requiring return of stolen wood), how can a bracha be made when the underlying acquisition is problematic? The Teshuvos Saraj Ba treats this as pashut (obvious) that one makes a bracha by both lulav and sukkah in such cases, but this appears to contradict the Mechaber's position directly.
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Sukkah 30b
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