Q&A: The Dispute: Is Tzitzit an Obligation of the Garment or an Obligation of the Person?
The Dispute: Is Tzitzit an Obligation of the Garment or an Obligation of the Person?
Question
Hello, honored Rabbi. It is written in Menachot 42b: “Regarding tzitzit, this is what they disagree about: one master holds that it is an obligation of the garment, and one master holds that it is an obligation of the person.” Around this turns the dispute whether it is possible to recite a blessing over putting them on or not. A question occurred to me: can one say that because shaatnez is overridden in the face of tzitzit, one must say that this is an obligation of the person? Essentially, if this is an obligation of the garment, then what room is there to override the prohibition because of the positive commandment of tzitzit? Now, one could say that even according to the one who holds that tzitzit is an obligation of the garment, there is still a condition that this is a garment that is in principle meant to be worn in order to fulfill the commandment with it, and therefore one must in principle override shaatnez so that he can fulfill the commandment of tzitzit in full on that same garment. But from what I understand, the rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition means that fulfillment of the commandment itself overrides the prohibition; and if I am not fulfilling the commandment through the transgression of the prohibition, then that rule does not apply there. One could say that tzitzit is nevertheless a special case, because this is derived from the juxtaposition of verses, but my understanding is that all that juxtaposition comes to teach is the very rule that a positive commandment overrides a prohibition, so it would not make sense to say that tzitzit is an exceptional case, and even in tzitzit the permission regarding shaatnez is by virtue of a positive commandment overriding a prohibition. So basically I am asking: does the derivation that the prohibition of shaatnez is overridden necessarily lead to the conclusion that this is an obligation of the person, or not necessarily?
Answer
The question whether this is an obligation of the person is a dispute among the Amoraim there in the Talmudic passage. In practice, Jewish law rules that it is an obligation of the person, but it does not seem that the rule of a positive commandment overriding a prohibition would depend on that dispute. Therefore, a priori it is not reasonable to prove from here that it is an obligation of the person.
Indeed, on logical grounds it would seem at first glance that you are right, since if this is an obligation of the garment itself, why should a positive commandment come and override the prohibition on the garment? Something similar was written by the Ran regarding the rule that an oath can take effect upon a vow, and therefore one who swore not to sit in a sukkah is forbidden to sit in it. The Ran asks in Nedarim 16: why should the positive commandment of sitting in a sukkah not come and override the prohibition of the oath? (True, there is also a positive element here, but it is a prohibition and a positive commandment that can be undone through annulment, and this is not the place to elaborate.) He answers that one does not feed a person something forbidden to him; that is, a vow is a rule in the object itself, and therefore it is not overridden by a commandment that applies to the person.
But it seems to me that this is unrelated. See column 230, where I distinguished between several meanings of a rule in the object and a rule on the person. Simply speaking, even if tzitzit is an obligation of the garment, this is not a rule in the object in the same sense as a vow. Rather, there is an obligation on the person that the garment be fitted with tzitzit. And in such a case we do not say that the positive commandment cannot override the prohibition. See there.