Q&A: One Who Is Engaged in a Commandment Is Exempt from Another Commandment
One Who Is Engaged in a Commandment Is Exempt from Another Commandment
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The first Mishnah in the chapter “One Whose Dead Lies Before Him” tells us that an onen is exempt from the commandments. Seemingly, we could already have learned this from what is said in the first chapter of tractate Berakhot, that one who is engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment (“it is when you go on your own way that you are obligated”). Then I thought that without the Mishnah about an onen, there would have been room to say that only someone engaged in a positive commandment is exempt from another commandment, but this teaches us that even someone engaged in a prohibition that also involves positive action (not leaving the corpse overnight), is also exempt from another commandment. And if you say that one could learn one from the other by an a fortiori argument, one can answer that there is a refutation in both directions: what is true of a positive commandment, since it overrides a prohibition; and what is true of a prohibition, since one is obligated to sacrifice more than a fifth of one’s money for it. What do you think of this idea?
Answer
First, I’m not sure to what extent one should construct interdependencies between Mishnayot. Beyond that, the exemption in the topic of “One Whose Dead Lies Before Him” is because of being preoccupied with a commandment, and simply speaking that is because he cannot concentrate, not because of the rule that one engaged in a commandment is exempt from another commandment. True, the Hazon Ish (15:1) wrote that it is because of one engaged in a commandment being exempt from another commandment. But straightforwardly, we are talking about someone who is not engaged in a commandment but preoccupied by a commandment, and therefore the two are not comparable.
As for your actual interdependency claim, I don’t agree. In Sdei Hemed (entry for the letter Ayin) he explains the words of Nachmanides on Parashat Yitro, that a positive commandment is more stringent than a prohibition with respect to fulfillment, while a prohibition is more stringent than a positive commandment with respect to violation. A positive commandment overriding a prohibition is because of comparing the value of fulfillment, whereas spending money is stricter for a prohibition because there the comparison is with respect to violation. But here the discussion is about one commandment yielding to another commandment, and the question is not one of stringency. Positive commandment X overrides positive commandment Y not because it is more stringent, but because it is the first one he is engaged in. And according to the Ran, that the yielding applies even when it is possible to fulfill both, then certainly this is not a matter of overriding at all.
Discussion on Answer
As I said, we do not construct interdependencies between topics.
Following up on this question, you wrote above: “the exemption in the topic of ‘One Whose Dead Lies Before Him’ is because of preoccupation with a commandment, and simply speaking that is because he cannot concentrate, not because of one engaged in a commandment.”
If so, the exemption should apply only to commandments that require special intention, such as Shema, prayer, and tefillin, and not to other commandments (and there is also a version of the Mishnah that omits the words “and from all the commandments stated in the Torah”).
That may be true, but even the intention to fulfill one’s obligation may require some degree of concentration.
If so, one could resolve from this Mishnah that commandments require intention (and from the fact that this is not resolved from here, there is proof that this is not talking about the other commandments).
Not necessarily. After all, according to all opinions commandments require intention; the dispute is only whether that is indispensable. If so, it is possible that they exempted the onen from commandments so that he would not be troubled by the attempt to concentrate (note well: not out of concern that he might fail to concentrate), even if the intention is not indispensable.
Then they should exempt him only from the requirement to have intention in performing commandments. Why is there a need to exempt him from the act of the commandment itself?
Act* of the commandment
It is possible that they did not want, from the outset, to exempt him from intention, because although it is not indispensable, ideally it is still required. They don’t want to open the door to an ideal practice that gives legitimacy to performing without intention.
I’m not in this topic right now, and I don’t have time to get into it. See what I found here:
https://dorshei.org/2018/08/09/%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%A4%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA/
The matter of one who is preoccupied with a commandment being exempt from another commandment is also stated in the previous chapter regarding a groom, who is exempt from reciting Shema. So even according to your approach one can still ask: what does it come to teach us? And one could answer that it comes to include a prohibition that also involves positive action with respect to one who is preoccupied with a commandment being exempt.