Golfer – Sometimes someone can end up in a situation in which he has a safeik regarding whether or not he is supposed to make a bracha. When someone is unsure whether or not he is supposed to make a bracha, one halachic solution is to ask someone else (who has a reason to be making that particular bracha anyhow) to be motzi you.
Let’s say for example that I ate cake and I don’t remember if I said an al hamichya or not. The rule is: “Safeik brachos l’hakel” – when there is a safeik with brachos, it is better to miss out on the bracha and not make a new bracha (since it might be a bracha l’vatala.)
But it is even better to find a way around the safeik – one way to do that is by having someone else be motzi you. That way, if I really did forget to say al hamichya, I am now covered but at the same time I don’t have to worry about a bracha l’vatala.
“And if you’re in middle of eating why wouldn’t you politely decline and say, “I’m not up to bracha achrona yet, I’m still eating”?”
You’re right – the issue here was that at the time the guy asked him, he didn’t think it would be a problem to say the al hamichya since he was finished the pastry. It was only the rice that he was not finished and since al hamichya is not the bracha achrona for rice, he assumed that it was okay to say an al hamichya on the pastry and continue eating the rice.
It was only afterwards that he realized that there might be a problem.