Birkas HaGomel When The Danger Came From Doing a Mitzvah

After a recent shiur on OC 218-219, Reb Harry Friedman told me he was listening to a daf shiur (From Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz on Meseches Shabbos 140;  at 29:02, ) and Rabbi Lebowitz quoted the Klozenberger Rov as saying that a person who flies to Eretz Yisrael is not in danger.  The idea was that since you don't make hagomel, the halacha changes the teva so that it is not dangerous. That is obviously not a complete thought, inasmuch as it begins with the assumption that you do not make the brakas hagomel. I later heard from several members of my shiur (one quoting Rabbi Lehrfield from Miami) to the same effect, that you don't make hagomel when you fly to Israel. 

I understood this to mean that a person who was endangered because he is doing what Hashem commanded him to do, that he do in the process of fulfilling a mitzva, should not make a bracha for being saved from that danger. Additionally, שומר מצוה לא ידע דבר רע, or as people usually say, שלוחי מצוה אינן ניזוקין. (That was certainly the case for the Klozenburger, but not so much for the average person. Going on a tour is not a kiyum of yishuv Eretz Yisroel. But let's leave that issue, and accept the premise, arguendo.)

I was very surprised by this idea, to say nothing of paskening like that. There is no hint of a halachic distinction between one who was endangered while engaged in a voluntary activity and one who was endangered while engaged in fulfilling a mitzvah. Yes, it is easy enough to say that because God protects those who are trying to do a mitzva, then he was never really in danger. This does not appeal to me. First, mitzvos do not protect a person in times of high risk. Second, when the person does the mitzvah with ulterior motives, the mitzva does not protect him. Third, so many poskim discuss a woman in childbirth. Obviously childbirth is a mitzvah, even if women are not obligated to do pirya v'rivya. So to me, this is close to indefensible, and I would ascribe it to a misunderstanding.

Thanks to the encyclopedic reach of the internet, I found that the Chidah in his Machzik Bracha brings that his father, Harav Yitzchak Zerachiah Azulai (hereinafter RYZA,) did hold like that. He also cites his father's contemporary as being in strong disagreement, as I was. 

As it happens, the person who initiated the conversation with the Chidah's father was named Eliezer Nachum, just like me, and he was a straight thinker, just like me. But he wasn't named after Reb Nochum Velvel Broide, as I was.

It's a very Sefardi conversation. This Rav Eliezer Nochum wrote to say that he asked RYZA this question in a dream, and RYZA did not answer, so he's writing him the letter. RYZA did answer the written question, and said that you don't make a bracha. Rav Eliezer Nochum says, nope, I disagree. 

I would have said "Now I know why you didn't answer me in my dream, because I only dream things that are true."  I do not believe that normative halacha takes this into consideration. You make a hagomel even if you were doing a mitzvah, even though several people in my shiur said that they heard this, that you don't make hagomel when you fly to Israel.

I later found that Rav Mordechai Horowitz of Frankfurt holds like RYZA. His politics and social policies aside, he knew how to learn, of course, but לפום חורפה etc. 

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. 

I wrote about this to Harav Shmuel Goldstein of Staten Island/Lakewood, my son Mordechai's partner in Kollel Horaah in Marlboro, a Posek Muvhak and talmid muvhak of the Feinstein mesorah, and he answered:

Shalom Aleichem!

I agree that logically we should always thank Hashem. Also, every Acharon who discusses childbirth obviously disagrees with Shiluchai Mitzvah angle. Also, every Rishon and Acharon (based off Gemara) who discusses travel and never mentioned that it's not if you put yourself in that situation, obviously disagrees with 'you did it to yourself' angle and probably to Shiluchai Mitzvah angle too.

Also, I have a Chiddush that Shiluchai Mitzvah doesn't help if they were going to get a punishment anyway. That is why Yaakov Aveenu was nervous to send Binyomin down to Mitzrayim.

Halacha LiMaaseh, even stronger than Safek Berachos LiHakel, is Minhag Yisroel. So we can safely be Mevarech.