Question

Have a good week, Rabbi,
Regarding the obligation of procreation, Ben Azzai’s exemption is well known. Maimonides brings it in this language:
2 The man is commanded concerning being fruitful and multiplying, but not the woman. And from when does a man become obligated in this commandment? From age sixteen or from age seventeen. And once he has passed twenty years and has not married a woman, he is transgressing and neglecting a positive commandment. But if he was engaged in Torah study, preoccupied with it, and feared marrying a woman lest he become burdened with supporting a household and be diverted from Torah, then he may delay, for one who is engaged in one commandment is exempt from another commandment; and all the more so with Torah study.
3 One whose soul yearns constantly for Torah, who is absorbed in it like Ben Azzai and clings to it all his days, and did not marry a woman—he bears no sin.
Regarding section 2, apparently Maimonides is treating the commandment of procreation as a commandment that can be fulfilled by others, meaning a commandment that is not personally incumbent on the individual the way a sukkah or lulav is (for otherwise he would have had to interrupt Torah study for it). But then this is difficult in light of the Talmud about Hezekiah in Berakhot 10a:
“In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill, and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet came to him and said to him: Thus says the Lord: Put your house in order, for you shall die and not live… What is the meaning of ‘you shall die and not live’? You shall die in this world and not live in the World to Come. He said to him: Why all this? He said to him: Because you did not engage in procreation. He said to him: It was because I saw by the holy spirit that children unworthy of merit would emerge from me. He said to him: What have you to do with the hidden matters of the Merciful One? What you were commanded, you should have done, and what is pleasing before the Holy One, blessed be He, let Him do.”
From this Talmudic passage it would seem, apparently, that the obligation of procreation is a personal obligation incumbent on the individual, contrary to the way Maimonides seems to understand it.
Also from the Talmud in Yevamot 63b it seems that the commandment of procreation is a commandment that can be fulfilled by others:
“Ben Azzai says: It is as though he sheds blood and diminishes the divine image, as it says, ‘And you, be fruitful and multiply.’ They said to Ben Azzai: There are those who expound well and fulfill well; those who fulfill well but do not expound well; and you expound well but do not fulfill well. He said to them: What shall I do? My soul yearns for Torah. It is possible for the world to be sustained by others.”
According to Ben Azzai’s view, it seems that the obligation of procreation is a commandment upon the community—that the world continue to exist. About this I wanted to ask an additional question: why does the fact that the world can continue through others exempt Ben Azzai from sharing the burden? After all, it is known that according to Kant’s categorical imperative (the basic idea behind it), even if the world can continue through others, the individual is not exempt from procreation (as you wrote in the past about the obligation to vote in elections). After all, the democratic process too can continue through others, and each individual on his own would not undo the democratic process.
With blessings,