Responsa sobre Provérbios 23:22

They responded: "Do not disdain your mother of old" (Proverbs 23:22) "and take the customs of your fathers in your hands" (Beitzah 4b). For these blessings were originally instituted in order to complete the 100 blessings that one is required to recite daily³This statement about the requirement to recite one hundred blessings is brought immediately after the list of morning blessings in Rif Berakhot 44b:2, perhaps the impetus for this association, and there is no need to be meticulous to say the blessing before the action they refer to. We are not meticulous about the exact timing of the blessing for sitting in the Sukkah, which is required over a cup of wine. Similarly, if one did not hear the rooster or one slept in their clothes, they say the blessing anyway. The proof is from the daily Amida blessings. Even if one doesn't have a sick person in their household, they are required to say the blessing "Who heals the sick, etc." And even one who is rich and has no need for income says the blessing for the prosperity of the year.

They responded: "Do not disdain your mother of old." (Proverbs 23:22) For these correct customs were instituted by wise and pious sages, and they have a reason even when it is not apparent. They gave the reason for this practice: in the evening, one recites the blessing for having arrived at the time of the Megillah reading. In the morning however, we say the blessing on having arrived at the time of feasting and exchanging gifts of food, for the rabbis said (Megillah 7b): "One who eats their Purim feast in the evening has not fulfilled their obligation." If you ask why then we do not recite the blessing at the time of the feast itself, it is lest one transgresses, because of the engagements of the day, and forgets to recite it. Therefore, they instituted its recitation in the morning, at the time of the Megillah reading.

They responded: it is a well-known halacha that something is only considered 'wine' once the liquid begins to flow to the mouth of the winepress (Avoda Zara 55b:3). But the squeezing of grapes inside a vessel is no different to packing a sack of wheat in order that it hold as much wheat as possible. So too, the squeezing of the grapes here is only to pack them in tightly, and there is no hint of transgression. Somebody who purposefully refrains from doing something permitted is considered vulgar. But as for you, "Do not disdain your mother of old," (Proverbs 23:22), and those who are stringent in this regard will be blessed, while those who are lenient, [Heaven is] lenient with the length of their days and years. All this they responded to me.^*The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 75a:6) seems to say that vessels that carried grapes need to be rinsed, and while this line is omitted by the Rif, Rabbeinu Tam (cited in Beit Yosef Yoreh Deah 138) requires it too. Perhaps this is the source for the discrepancy of customs being discussed here. As usual, the heavenly response gives great importance to local custom.