Q&A: Tearing on the Sabbath
Tearing on the Sabbath
Question
Hello Rabbi. In lesson 22 on the categories of labor, I would appreciate an explanation: is mourning rending itself the commandment, or is the main thing simply that one go around wearing a torn garment? The practical difference would be if they brought him his own garment after someone else had already torn it. Another issue: one who rends for his dead on the Sabbath. If he is obligated to rend, then isn’t that not considered a constructive act in some other respect? And if it would be possible with an already torn garment and yet he still tears, perhaps this is a commandment that comes through a transgression, because he should have asked them to bring him one already torn. Thank you.
Answer
The accepted view is that the commandment is to rend, not merely that the garment be torn. All the laws stated about this (that it must be done while standing and not sitting, and the like) prove that. Still, it is considered a constructive act in some other respect, because he does it for the sake of the commandment and not for the sake of repairing the garment. On the contrary, if the law were that the garment must be torn, one could say that the tearing repairs the garment by making it what it is supposed to be. But if this is a personal obligation, then it is clear that there is no repair to the garment here, only to something else.
Thank you very much