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Creating and canceling a summary for performing a mitzvah

שו”תCategory: philosophyCreating and canceling a summary for performing a mitzvah
asked 4 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
 
What do you think about observing mitzvot that we are not obligated to do? I am not talking about existential mitzvot like eating bread in the sukkah after the first night, but about mitzvot that apparently do not currently have the essence to commit to, but are created artificially. For example:

  1. Wearing a four-winged garment to pledge allegiance to the tzitzit
  2. Owning a donkey just to redeem it
  3. For a field owner, fulfilling the mitzvah of a veil, even though it seems possible to get rid of it (because the poor do not come)

One could also ask the opposite question about “regular” arama – an artificial change of the situation in order to avoid fulfilling the mitzvah. Tosafot says about tzitzit that there is a punishment for this (= avoiding wearing an appropriate garment even though it is customary to wear it, in order to avoid tzitzit) during a calamity. But apparently it is done all the time in prozbol, sale permits, etc. And about the wig, I am a little doubtful whether it should not be observed in our days.
My question is, is it permissible to do the trick, and especially the opposite – is there value in artificially creating a charge?


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מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
First, I see no difference between existential and conditional commandments in this regard. It seems to me that the question of whether a person should or should put himself in a position of obligation is not well defined. After all, it is clear that if a person does so, he receives a reward for it. To the same extent, it is clear that he is not obligated. So what is the question? It is clear that there is value because you earn a mitzvah and a reward. Is there a claim against someone who did not do so? It is quite clear to me that not. Regarding the punishment in the Idna Dritcha for tzitzit, this is the Gemara and not the Toss. On the contrary, the Toss writes that the punishment will be given only in a place where the person evades the fulfillment of the mitzvah, meaning that his usual shirt has four fringes and he wears a different one in order to evade. But in a place where there are no shirts with four fringes, as in our country, there is no problem with not fulfilling the mitzvah and we certainly are not punished for it. In my opinion, this is a simple interpretation, as a rule, although the poskim do not seem to have considered the opinion of the Toss. Prozbul and the sale permit are bad examples, because both are done in a place of great necessity. There it is certainly possible to cheat or not enter into the obligation of a mitzvah. If you are talking about doing prozbul or the sale permit when there is no need, then all the poskim agree that it is not appropriate to do so. Furthermore, the poskim who oppose the sale permit claim that there is an actual prohibition in it, meaning that the objection is not to the cheating in the matter (as in the sale of chametz or the sale permit), but to the commission of a prohibition.

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