Blessing on the Purchase of a House

The Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 223:3 quotes the law that one must recite the blessing of praise "she-heheyanu" upon purchasing a house. However, the question has been debated whether this applies to a house that is purchased with a loan. The concern is that the burden of repaying the loan diminishes the new homeowner's joy in his purchase.

R. Hayim Falaji (Lev Hayim 3:52) rules that the diminished joy of borrowing renders the purchase insufficient to require (or allow) recitation of the blessing. More recently, R. Moshe Stern (Be'er Moshe 5:68) concurs, and points out that, according to Tosafos (Sukkah 46a), this blessing is not recited at a circumcision because the pain to the baby diminishes the joy of the occasion.

R. Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer 12:19) emphatically disagrees. According to R. Waldenberg, the blessing is not recited on joy but upon the receipt of benefit. Therefore, since any anxiety over repaying a loan does not detract from the benefit of the new house, the blessing should still be recited.

R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv is quoted as ruling that someone to whom missing payments on the loan is a significant possibility should not recite the blessing because, to him, the mortgage represents significant stress and anxiety. To more regular house-buyers, though, the mortgage is not as big a stress and therefore does not remove the ability to recite "she-heheyanu."

R. J. David Bleich (Tradition 35:1 Spring 2001 pp. 80-81) takes issue with R. Elyashiv's ruling, pointing out that the Shulhan Arukh (Orah Hayim 224:4) rules that a person should recite "she-heheyanu" upon finding a lost object even if there is a significant possibility that the monarch will seize the property. Seizure by the government, argues R. Bleich, should be no different than seizure by creditors.

(On all this, see R. Bleich's article cited above.)