Q&A: Putting on Tefillin After Accepting an Early Sabbath
Putting on Tefillin After Accepting an Early Sabbath
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I read in Yalkut Yosef, section 261, that someone who accepted an addition to the Sabbath while it was still day and then remembered that he had not put on tefillin should put them on without a blessing.
I seem to remember that when you spoke about positive commandments and prohibitions and mentioned the Sabbath, you said that Sabbath observance includes both a positive commandment and a prohibition.
Is that relevant here? Because seemingly, if someone accepted the Sabbath early, there is a clash between the positive commandment of observing the Sabbath—so then it would be forbidden for him to touch tefillin, which are set aside as muktzeh—and the obligation to put on tefillin, which is a positive commandment.
If the Sabbath were only a prohibition, then apparently the positive commandment would override the prohibition and everything would be fine. But here there is a clash between the positive commandment of observing the Sabbath and the positive commandment of putting on tefillin.
Unless, of course, the classification of tefillin as muktzeh is rabbinic, in which case it is understandable why one should put on the tefillin—but then it is not clear why one should not make a blessing.
What do you think about this issue? (Did I make a complete mess of the whole thing?)
Answer
You did indeed make a mess of it 🙂
Muktzeh is a rabbinic prohibition. And it is also not a prohibition of labor, which is the only category regarding which there is both a positive commandment and a prohibition.
In principle, during twilight rabbinic restrictions were not decreed, although in practice the Jewish law ruling is to be stringent about this. But regarding tefillin, one does put them on, and does not make a blessing, because even on a weekday during twilight it is proper not to make a blessing on them then (although the halakhic decisors disagree about this).
In any case, twilight is a time of doubt, and because of that doubt one puts them on without a blessing. But if he accepted the Sabbath while it was still day, it seems that before twilight he should put them on with a blessing.
See an overview here (at the end): https://parashat.co.il/ask-rav/%D7%A2%D7%93-%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%A4%D7%A9%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%97-%D7%AA%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9F/
Discussion on Answer
Yes, that’s what I meant when I wrote that in any case he puts them on.
In any case, for the sake of a commandment, a rabbinic restriction is permitted during twilight, no?