Q&A: Women and Slaves Joining for Grace After Meals
Women and Slaves Joining for Grace After Meals
Question
A theoretical question, but I’m trying to understand it anyway:
It says that women make a zimmun for themselves and slaves for themselves, but women and slaves do not join together because of licentiousness.
Is this “because of licentiousness” a rabbinic safeguard, if I’m not mistaken? (After all, it won’t necessarily lead to licentiousness.)
According to the view that zimmun is a Torah-level commandment, wouldn’t it be preferable for women and slaves to violate the rabbinic “because of licentiousness” restriction in order to fulfill a Torah-level commandment?
(Unless the one who holds that it is a Torah-level commandment does not hold that women and slaves are Torah-level obligated, which of course would end the discussion—but I’m not knowledgeable enough about this.)
Answer
There is some doubt whether women are obligated at the Torah level in this matter (see Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 186:1). But regarding your question: there are rabbinic safeguards that prevent the fulfillment of a Torah-level blessing. For example, blowing the shofar (or waving the lulav on Sukkot) when Rosh Hashanah falls on the Sabbath. Likewise, in the Talmudic passage in Sukkah 4a about one who ate inside the sukkah while his table was inside the house; Tosafot there writes that if one did not comply with the rabbinic requirement, he has not fulfilled the Torah-level obligation either (though the Ran disagrees). The Sages sometimes upheld their enactments even in the face of Torah law.
By the way, it is commonly accepted that Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Magen Avraham disagreed about the case of someone who blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah that fell on the Sabbath—whether he has fulfilled a commandment or not. But no one disagrees that it is improper and forbidden to do so.
Discussion on Answer
The source for this matter is not clear, but it is an agreed-upon rule that the Sages can uproot something from the Torah through passive non-performance. It may be that the basis for this is that our obligation to the Torah rests on the fact that we committed ourselves to it collectively. Now the representatives of the collective come and place qualifications on that obligation. This has validity because we undertook the commitment from the outset with that understanding.
If that’s the basis, why is there a distinction between uprooting something through passive omission and uprooting something through positive action? And another question:
Why uproot a positive commandment at all in order to avoid violating a prohibition, if in any case a positive commandment overrides a prohibition?
The Sages decided on their own not to uproot through positive action. And in fact there are quite a few examples of uprooting through positive action against that rule, when there is an acute need. The Tosafists note this in several places, and so does the Raavad in Tamim De’im and elsewhere.
In these cases of uprooting, the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition does not apply. If you blow the shofar on the Sabbath and then mistakenly come to go to an expert, going to the expert was not permitted for the sake of the commandment of blowing shofar. It is not at the very time of the mitzvah.
It’s true that it’s not at the very time, but if we look at the hierarchy of importance, from the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition we learn that fulfilling a positive commandment is more important to the Holy One, blessed be He, than violating a prohibition. If so, why did the Sages cancel a definite positive commandment in order to avoid a possible prohibition? Or to put it differently: they canceled a positive commandment for all Israel in order to avoid a prohibition for a small fraction of Israel.
According to that, a positive commandment should override a prohibition even when it is not at the very time.
Thanks for the detailed answer.
How does this mechanism actually work, that the Sages can cancel a Torah-level commandment? I mean, I understand that they are the ones who basically transmit to us what is Torah-level law and what is rabbinic, but what is the halakhic tool they use?
Have you written about this somewhere? If so, I’d be happy for a reference. Thanks.