Q:
If a person goes into a car and travels, they’re putting themselves into sakanah. Why don’t we say tefillas haderech even traveling on highways within the city?
A:
The truth is I agree with you. In the olden days when you were in the town, you were sitting in a wagon or you were walking leisurely through the town, so there was very little danger in the olden days and therefore it was only until you left the town that you said tefillas haderech.
Today it would be a good idea. Whether to make a bracha or not, that’s something else, it’s a shem. But to be mispallel, I think every time you start driving your car today, it’s not a waste of effort to be mispallel that Hashem should protect you.
(July 1995)
