This morning, I made a Birkas Hagomel because of an incident we experienced while driving home from New Jersey on the PA Turnpike. Something flew off of a truck in front of us and hit the front of the car and then bounced off the road under us and caused damage to the undercarriage. It damaged the brake cable, and the electronics went haywire, but we managed to get the car to a local dealer in Harrisburg, and we were on our way within three hours.
My wife was in shul too, because a women's obligation to make a birkas hagomel is equal to that of a man. There are varying minhagim on how this is actually done- we don't find women who flew overseas packing into shul making Hagomel, nor do they make the bracha after childbirth. There is no reason for not making the bracha, they just don't. The Sefardishe poskim say they should come to shul and make the bracha during the minyan. The Mishna Berura says she should bentsch at home in front of ten women and one man. Reb Moshe says she can say it at home in front of one person, woman or man, and it is best to do in front of her husband if applicable, and there is no need for a minyan. But this was his last written teshuva, and part of it is filled in by Harav Mordechai Tendler, so it is hard to know whether he held like that lemaiseh.
It so happened that there were several people making the bracha this morning, because they came from Israel to attend Dov Peikes' daughter's wedding here in Chicago. I was reminded of Reb Moshe's shittah about this, which, I believe, is unique among the poskim. This is how I wrote it a while ago.
I know that my shver שליט"א does not say hagomel when he flies to Israel, only when he returns, but that is for an entirely different reason. Reb Moshe held that while you are still traveling, you don't make hagomel until the trip is done. This is a well known halacha psuka in רי'ט, but most poskim say that it applies if you are only there for a couple of days. The Shaarei Tziyun is a little more vague. But Reb Moshe alone held that this applies to any trip less than thirty days long.
Most poskim say that if you have reached a place you wanted to be, then you make a bracha even if you're only there for a day. Some hold you have to be there for several days. (This is different than soldiers on leave- here, you are still traveling, and you are still in middle of your trip. In the case of soldiers, they are home, or on leave, and that ends the matzav of sakana completely.) But only Reb Moshe holds that you are called a מחזיק בדרך until you get home, unless you stay for thirty days before returning.
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