Rejection of Torah commandments due to the regulations of the Sages
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I wanted to ask how it is possible that on the second day of the month of Galyot, the commandment of tefillin, which is a Torah commandment, is canceled by virtue of a Sage ruling that is a rabbinic one?
Best regards,
The rule is that the Sages remove something from the Torah in the Shabbat. For example, they ruled not to blow the shofar on the first day of Sukkot that falls on the Sabbath, and also not to shake four species on the first Yom Kippur of Sukkot that falls on the Sabbath. This is when there is a good reason, as there was in their time due to confusion in dates.
Recently, I was reminded that a deed is a repulsive act, and hence the question arises, if the sages uproot a deed in the Shovat, wouldn't it be even more so that they could uproot a non-deed, since a deed is a repulsive act? The question can also be asked the other way around, if the sages cannot uproot a nay, wouldn't it be even more so that they wouldn't be able to uproot a deed in the Shovat?
In addition, by actually observing a second Yom Tov of Galyot, don't the Sages also abolish the prohibition of not adding? And here we can't say that they abolish the Shostak, right?
A. This calculation has a twist: the displacement of an act is in the case of the law, and the displacement of a non-act is in the case of the law. Therefore, the displacement of an act is easier than the displacement of a non-act. Regarding an act that rejects a non-act, this is an interesting calculation in itself (since the offense of non-act is more serious than the cancellation of an act), but it is difficult for me to elaborate in an email.
B. Regarding the question of why every regulation of the Sages is not a violation of the law of not adding or not subtracting, Tos and Rashba disagreed on this in the book of Rehash 16b. According to most systems, regulations of the Sages are exempt from the law of not adding because the Torah itself authorized them to do so.
Regarding the question of whether the removal of Bel Tasif is a removal in the Qo'a, even though the prohibition that was removed was itself removed in the Sho'at, I remember a discussion by Baal Turi Even (the novellas for Shas by the author of the Sha'gat Aryeh Responsa) on this, and if it interests you, I'll try to find it.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer