If someone wants to be mekayem the mitzvah of shiluach hakein. If someone learns the halachos is it considered as if it was performed/ Is there such a concept in torah? A person might not get the opportunity to do shiluach hakein because of lack of birds, etc. Somebody told me that Rav Kanievsky said that it was so. Is that true based on something written.
Answer:
There is some source for this, though the Torah study is surely not actually equivalent to fulfilling the mitzvah.
Best wishes.
Sources:
The Gemara writes that Hashem told Avraham that even when the Mikdash will be destroyed, the Jewish People will retain the merit of the sacrifices, because their reading of the sacrifice passages in the Torah will count as though the sacrifice was brought.
However, we don’t find this concept in Chazal with regard to regular mitzvah performance. Certainly, one cannot say that by learning the passage of tefillin I have fulfilled the mitzvah and don’t have to put tefillin on!
Yet, some authorities mention the idea in connection to mitzvos, and the Be’er Sheva (introduction) therefore writes that it is particularly important to study the Torah of mitzvos that we cannot perform today. See also Beis Elokim, Teshuvah Chap. 9.
There is certainly a virtue of learning the Torah passage, and this “connects” a person with the mitzvah.
