Reciting the Brocha of She’asah Li Neis Outside of a Church

Question

My brother and I are baalei teshuvah and we have a very interesting question to ask the rov.

Before my father married our mother, he was engaged to a non-Jew. When his fiancée discovered that my father was Jewish, she got cold feet. Although he was able to convince her to go ahead with the wedding, she insisted that before they married, he first had to get baptized, Rachmana litzlan. My father very much wanted to marry this woman and he agreed.

On the day the baptism was scheduled to take place, my father entered the church for the procedure. The church where he was supposed to be baptized apparently had structural problems, and before the baptism took place, the roof caved in. Almost everyone in the building was killed. A rescue team managed to dig our father out from beneath the rubble and was shocked that, despite the tons of debris resting on top of him, he miraculously survived.

My father viewed this as a sign that he was not meant to marry this woman. Although he did not then decide to become religious, he did go on to marry our mother, who is Jewish.

My brother and I would like to know whether we may recite the brocha of she’asah neis l’avi (as cited in Shulchan Aruch 218:4) regarding this incident, and we have the following questions:

1. 1. Is surviving a collapsed building considered a miracle for which one recites this brocha, or do we say that since people occasionally survive such incidents, it is not considered a miracle and one would therefore not recite a brocha upon seeing the place? 
   

2. 2. Our second question is somewhat more complicated. If surviving such a calamity is considered a miracle, can we recite this brocha when we see the church building, or, perhaps, since the miracle occurred inside the building, it is not sufficient to see the outside of the building, and one would need to enter the church in order to recite the brocha? 

   
   

Thank you.

The M. Brothers

Rav Auerbach 

First of all, I am happy to hear that you and your brother rejected the ways of your father and became baalei teshuvah. May you continue to grow daily in your avodas Hashem.

As for whether your father’s survival after a ceiling collapsed on top of him is considered a miracle for which one recites this brocha, I advise you to look at the introduction to the Pnei Yehoshua. There was a major fire in the courtyard where he lived, and his building collapsed on top of him. While buried beneath the rubble, he accepted upon himself that if he survived, he would spend the rest of his life delving deeply into the sugyos haShas. That is how the sefer Pnei Yehoshua came about.

Following that incident, he would recite the brocha of she’asah li neis upon seeing the place where the miracle occurred. You can rely on the Pnei Yehoshua as precedent to consider what happened to your father a miracle.

As for your second question regarding where this brocha should be recited, since the miracle occurred while your father was inside the building, we would generally consider the inside of the building to be the proper place to recite this brocha (Chayei Adam 65:5, citing Maharitatz 87).

However, since your father’s miracle took place inside a church, one should certainly not enter a church in order to recite the brocha of she’asah neis l’avi. Since the roof collapsed upon him, the entire structure, both the inside and the outside, can be considered the place of the miracle. Therefore, you and your brother may recite this brocha when you see the outside of the building.

Before reciting this brocha, you should know that it is not recited every time one sees the building. Since this brocha is a birkas hare’iyah, it is recited only after thirty days have passed without seeing that location (Shulchan Aruch 218:3).