Kiddushin, Daf Lammed Daled, Part 5
Introduction
We continue to discuss the derivation of the rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments.
ואדילפינן מתפילין לפטורא נילף משמחה לחיובא
אמר אביי אשה בעלה משמחה
אלמנה מאי איכא למימר בשרויה אצלו
Now, instead of deriving an exemption from tefillin, let us derive an obligation from [the mitzvah of] rejoicing [on the festival]?
Abaye said: As for a woman, her husband must make her rejoice.
Then what can be said of a widow? It refers to the one she is with.
The fact that women are exempt from tefillin led the rabbis to derive the general rule that they are always exempt from positive time-bound commandments. But instead of deriving the general rule from tefillin, why not derive it from the mitzvah to rejoice on the festival, a positive time-bound commandment which women are obligated in, as we learn explicitly in Deuteronomy 16:14-15.
Abaye essentially exempts women from an independent commandment to rejoice on the festival. The husband is obligated to make her happy, but she herself is not obligated to rejoice. If she is a widow, then those men who are accompanying her (chaperones?) are obligated to make her happy.
As a side note, we can see here the development of a rule. The rule that women are exempt from positive time-bound commandments was originally descriptive and prescriptive. It, for the most part, was an accurate description of what mitzvoth women are obligated in. But by Abaye s time it becomes prescriptive, for after all, rules are not really rules if they have exceptions. Abaye uses the rule to exempt women from a mitzvah they were previously obligated in.
ונילף מהקהל משום דהוה מצה והקהל שני כתובים הבאים כאחד וכל שני כתובים הבאין כאחד אין מלמדים
Now, let us derive [the rule] from [the mitzvah of] assembling ?
Because matzah and assembling are two verses that come as one, and wherever two verses come as one, they cannot teach about other verses.
Women are obligated to assemble in Jerusalem at the end of the seventh year. So why not learn from this commandment that they are obligated in all positive time-bound commandments?
The answer is that we now have two positive time-bound commandments for which women are obligated matzah and gathering. And there is a rule that if we have two mitzvoth that fit a rule, then that rule applies only to those two and not to other mitzvoth. The logic is that had the Torah wanted this to be a consistent rule, it would have stated the rule with regard to one mitzvah and from there we could have applied it everywhere. So when it made the statement with regard to two mitzvoth, the idea was that it should apply there and nowhere else.
אי הכי תפילין וראיה נמי שני כתובים הבאים כאחד ואין מלמדים
If so, tefillin and pilgrimage are also two verses that come as one, and they do not teach [about other commandments]?
The Talmud has now boxed itself into a discursive corner if we don t learn from two verses that come as one why not say that tefillin and pilgrimage are also two verses that come as one, for they are both positive time-bound commandments which explicitly exclude women?
צריכי דאי כתב רחמנא תפילין ולא כתב ראיה הוה אמינא נילף ראיה ראיה מהקהל
ואי כתב רחמנא ראיה ולא כתב תפילין הוה אמינא אקיש תפילין למזוזה צריכא
They are both necessary: for had the Torah stated tefillin but not pilgrimage, I would have thought, let us deduce the meaning of pilgrimage from assembling.
And if the Torah had written pilgrimage but not tefillin, I would have said, Let tefillin be compared to mezuzah.
Thus both are necessary.
The Talmud now explains that we actually needed the Torah to exempt women in both the case of tefillin and pilgrimage. Had the Torah stated the rule with regard to one, I would not have been able to derive the other.
Had we not learned that women are exempt from pilgrimage (at all three festivals) I would have thought that just as they are obligated in assembling (at the end of seven years) so too they are obligated in pilgrimage.
And had I not learned that they were exempt from tefillin, I would have compared them to mezuzah, for they are right next to the mitzvah of mezuzah in the Shema.
Since we need both verses, this is not considered a case of two verses that come as one.