- Q. We own in our small town, a great and large property. During this Pesach, as it commonly happens in other years, some bears entered our ample garden and then went on loitering the garbage containers close to the road that contain plenty of discarded food we don’t use on Pesach, and are placed already early on the town owned area for pick up.
We have a number of related shailos.
Firstly, this year likely attracted by the exposed garbage, some bears tried to break a window and enter the basement where some Yom Tov guest were staying, but Be’H they did not.
Do the people that were there have to recite the blessing of Hagomel? (said when being saved from a real danger).
A. On a similar question 843, we received the following:
“Q. Dear Rav Bartfeld, shlita,
Someone in our kehillah was hiking alone up a mountain out west. As he was walking, he noticed a black bear about 90 meters away from him. Black bears can be deadly, even though they are not as dangerous as grizzlies.
The wind was working in the man’s favour, so the bear didn’t pick up on the scent. He quickly descended the mountain without incident.
The man was truly petrified, and wanted to bench Gomel upon his return to safety. On the one hand, the bear didn’t attack him, and fortunately didn’t even notice him. On the other hand it could have been a dangerous or deadly encounter, chalilah if the wind would have been blowing in the opposite direction.
Would this man be obligated to bench the blessing of Hagomel? More generally, is Hagomel something which is subjective: since he felt that he was in danger, he should bench? or is there an absolute line that must be crossed before chazal would mandate blessing Hagomel?”
To what we answered:
“A. Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that Hagomel should not be recited unless someone was actually in danger and then saved. He further explained that being endangered could be defined as a statistically meaningful probability of being hurt.
A situation defined in Halacha as “Miut Hamotzui” a small but significant enough probability to be taken into serious consideration, (some Poskim maintain it is a ten percent probability, but other numbers are also mentioned).
The above means, that similar encounters at that distance, wind direction, and species of bears, have resulted in actual injury or trauma, which is clearly not your case.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as advised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a”
Important Numbers
