Q&A: Festival Joy
Festival Joy
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The Mishnah (Pesachim, chapter 6, mishnayot 1–2) brings a list of actions (in the context of offering the Passover sacrifice), some of which override the Sabbath and some of which do not override it.
The actions that do override are Torah-level actions, and the actions that do not override are rabbinic actions.
Rabbi Eliezer says that all of them override, because if one violates Torah prohibitions for the sake of the sacrifice, then all the more so lighter rabbinic actions should also override.
Rabbi Yehoshua challenges Rabbi Eliezer and says to him that we find on a Jewish holiday that Torah-level labors are permitted while rabbinic ones are forbidden. So we see from this that one cannot derive that a fortiori argument.
Rabbi Eliezer answers him: what are you comparing? The actions on a Jewish holiday are optional, whereas the Passover sacrifice is a commandment.
And in fact, what was Rabbi Yehoshua’s reasoning in making the comparison? The Talmud says (Pesachim 68b): because according to Rabbi Yehoshua, the joy of a Jewish holiday is also a commandment. So everything here is a commandment.
Now the question is: even if festival joy is a commandment, none of those actions is obligatory in itself (since one is not obligated to cook on a Jewish holiday), whereas in the Passover sacrifice every action is obligatory. So it would seem that even according to Rabbi Eliezer, festival joy could still be a commandment, except that there is a difference between a commandment that is optional and a commandment that is obligatory.
So there is still a distinction here. How, then, is Rabbi Yehoshua’s position answered?
Answer
You are assuming that only indispensable actions override the Sabbath. But there are principles of override that do not necessarily depend on whether the action is indispensable. For example, the Ra’avad at the beginning of the Sifra discusses women performing semikhah voluntarily (commandments from which women are exempt, such as time-bound positive commandments), and he says that even women’s semikhah overrides a prohibition by virtue of the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, even though for women it is optional. From there you can learn that festival joy, which is not optional but obligatory—even if perhaps it can be fulfilled in some other way—can certainly override a prohibition.
This dispute is of course related to the question of preparatory acts, over which Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva disagree at the beginning of the chapter “Rabbi Eliezer of Circumcision on the Sabbath.” There too they discuss the view that according to Rabbi Akiva, only preparatory acts that cannot be done on the eve of the Sabbath override the Sabbath. But in my opinion, even if one accepts that, it is still possible that festival joy overrides the Sabbath even though one could rejoice in some other way. After all, if it cannot be done on the eve of the Sabbath, it can override the Sabbath.
Discussion on Answer
As I wrote, the Talmud apparently assumes as a matter of reasoning that there is no difference. As long as there is a commandment involved, it overrides the Sabbath.
I’m not assuming that only necessary actions override the Sabbath.
Rather, I’m saying that the Talmud’s explanation—that Rabbi Yehoshua holds that festival joy is a commandment—doesn’t answer the distinction that still exists between a commandment that is optional and one that is obligatory.
The fact that it may be that even things that aren’t necessary override the Sabbath is fine—but what’s the proof?
I understand Rabbi Eliezer better, when he says that everything is permitted because of the a fortiori argument: if they permitted Torah-level prohibitions, then rabbinic ones should certainly also be permitted.
What I don’t understand is how the Talmud’s explanation of Rabbi Yehoshua’s view is supposed to prove his position. (And why does that mean that according to Rabbi Eliezer there is no commandment of joy on a Jewish holiday? Maybe he agrees there is, and he simply distinguishes between mandatory commandments and optional ones?)