Q&A: On Positive Commandments That Are Time-Bound
On Positive Commandments That Are Time-Bound
Question
Hello Rabbi!
Is women’s exemption from positive commandments that are time-bound something essential, or technical? Is the rule true only incidentally, or is there something essential about the fact that these commandments do not apply to women?
The conclusion of the passage in Kiddushin regarding positive commandments that are time-bound is this:
Most of the tannaic sages derived an analogy from tefillin.
Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda derive it from verses that do not serve as precedents.
These derivations work very well, aside from the basic question: why divide the Torah into commandments that are time-bound and commandments that are not?
What seemingly sharpens the question is the very opening of the passage, which says that this is a rule from which one cannot derive anything.
If so, the following comes out:
We invented a concept to help us classify the commandments. A concept that does not appear in the Torah, but at least it streamlines the division of the commandments.
But in truth it does not even do that, since from the rule we formulated we cannot infer anything about other commandments!
If the rule were ironclad, then I would say: even if we do not know why the Torah should be divided this way, it is a division that works. Since it is true everywhere, it is useful enough to justify a new concept. Since the rule is not true in many cases, one has to wonder why the sages formulated it as a rule.
In my humble opinion, this leads to the conclusion that the rule is essentially true. Women are exempt from positive commandments that are time-bound. And we do not derive from general rules because the rule was not meant to tell me from which particular commandments women are exempt and for which they are obligated, since the rule does not do that. Therefore, the rule must be meant to tell me something essential (about those commandments, about women, about something between them… I do not know what, but something).
As the Rabbi can see, from this point on I am a bit stuck.
I know that the Rabbi has a nice idea about the relationship between the circle (found in commandments that recur, and that is how he defines time-bound commandments) and the line.
Does that mean, in your view, that a woman has no need for these recurring checkpoints (assuming I remember correctly that we return to the same point, the same commandment, the same holiday, hoping that this time it is the same thing but a little higher)? Does that mean we can basically give up celebrating our wives’ birthdays (which could save people a lot of money and marital discord)?
Or is your approach to women’s exemption different?
Does the Rabbi have sources or something written on the matter?
Thank you very much!
Answer
As for positive commandments that are time-bound, I do not recall having written about the matter directly. But I have dealt here and there with the meaning of rules in general, including this one. I wrote about it directly in Midah Tovah 5765, Ha’azinu. I will write here off the cuff.
A. One has to discuss the status of halakhic rules in general. Are they rules after the fact, meaning they describe the body of accepted facts and rulings that were reached independently of them—in other words, the facts create the rules? Or are they a priori rules—the rules determined the facts? Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, in Kovetz Shiurim, proves regarding the rules in Eruvin 46b that they are a priori, since the Talmud there learns by a kal va-chomer that if the law follows Rabbi Yosei against Rabbi Yehuda, and the law follows Rabbi Yehuda against Rabbi Shimon, then necessarily the law follows Rabbi Yosei against Rabbi Shimon—transitivity. From here it is clear that these rules are not merely incidental but essential. Of course, that does not mean this is so לגבי all rules.
For example, the rule that the law follows Rava over Abaye except in the six cases of Ya’al Kegam looks like a rule after the fact, since there are exceptions, as you wrote. But even that is not necessary, because there may be specific reasons to depart from an a priori rule. For example, in five of the six disputes of Ya’al Kegam the issue is retroactive effect, and therefore perhaps specifically here Abaye is right because this is one underlying principle. With positive commandments that are time-bound as well, there is an explanation at least for some of the exceptions. For example, with Hakhel women are obligated because it is a communal commandment rather than a private one, and everyone who belongs to the community is obligated in it. I elaborated on this in Midah Tovah.
And more generally, even if there are rules that are not merely collections of de facto rulings but essential rules that determine the rulings, there can still be exceptions to them, because there are sub-rules that say to deviate. In general the sages place very little weight on rules: one does not derive from them even in a case where an exception was stated. “What does this rule come to include?” “What does the common denominator come to include?” Does that mean the rules are only de facto collections? Not necessarily. But beyond the rule there is also common sense.
Bottom line: I am not sure the distinction between the two possibilities is so dichotomous. Rules of language also look like de facto rules, since they all have exceptions. And still, at least regarding some of them, there is a sense that they are not entirely arbitrary or accidental. That means there is some logic or purpose, but there are sub-rules that sometimes qualify it.
B. Now let us return to our issue. The very fact that the sages created a distinction between time-bound positive commandments and those that are not time-bound seems to require explanation. It could be one of two things: 1. a tradition from Sinai. 2. there is an a priori logic to it. Abudarham, who explained that women are exempt because of any disruption to the schedule, understood this as an a priori rationale. Yet there are still exceptions that override that rationale, and that is no contradiction. On the other hand, it is quite clear from the flow of the passage in Kiddushin that this was a rule that was already known, and the discussion comes only to justify it afterward, or to find a source for it after the fact—an asmachta-style derivation. Various derivations are brought there, all arriving at the same conclusion. So it seems the game is rigged. That points דווקא to the option of tradition, though this can be rejected based on HaNetziv in Kadmat HaEmek, who wrote that when Maimonides says “learned as a tradition,” he means a tradition not from Sinai whose source was lost to us, whereas for Rashi it means a law given to Moses at Sinai. If so, the same could be said here.
And in truth, in my humble opinion, Abudarham’s words are very puzzling, both on their own terms— is this rationale really strong enough to exempt women from so many commandments? I have much better rationales for exempting all kinds of people from all kinds of commandments— and because he is effectively expounding the reason for the verse. Even though one can distinguish and say that in rabbinic exposition we certainly do infer from the reason of the verse, since the expositor himself relied on that reason. It is only in interpreting the plain verses that we do not do so, but this is not the place to elaborate.
I hope this may have helped somewhat.
Much success,