One possibile answer is that the chiyuv on women to
recite the haggadah is really part and parcel of their mitzvah of eating
matzah. The gemara (Pesachim 36)
darshens that matzah is called “lechem oni” because “onim alav devarim harbei” –
we have to recite things over it to make it into “bread of afflication.” What things?
Rashi explains that it means we recite hallel and the haggadah (I don’t
know why does Rashi mention hallel first and then haggadah when we do it the
other way around.) The point may be
valid, but it doesn’t really explain the Chinuch. If this is what the Chinuch meant, he should
mention this detail in the mitzvah of matzah, not include women in the separate
mitzvah of haggadah.
Another possibility is that the Chinuch held like the view in Tosfos (Meg 4) that
the sevara of “af hein hayu b’oso ha’nes” creates a chiyuv d’oraysa. However, the
dominant view in Tosfos (see also Tos Pesachim 108) and Rishonim is that “af hein” only
creates a chiyuv derabbanan. R’ Baruch
Mordechai Ezrachi in his haggadah suggests that this machlokes may depend on
how to understand “af hein:” is it a new chiyuv, or does it just remove the
ptur of zman gerama? Any new chiyuv
would be derabbanan, but if “af hein” lifts the ptur of zman gerama, then that
would mean if the chiyuv on men is d’oraysa, the same would apply to
women.
R’ Wahrman zt”l quotes a very interesting yesod from
his rebbe, R’ Leizer Silver. The source for
the exemption of zman gerama is the mitzvah of tefillin. Perhaps the ptur only applies to mitzvos like
tefillin, which we would not know if not for a gezeiras hakasuv, but not to
mitzvos sichliyos, mitzvos that we would do anyway because they make sense,
even if G-d did not command us to do them.
If it makes sense to do something, what difference does it make if you
are a man or a woman, if it is something you should do on one specific day or
all year? (By way of analogy, some
Rishonim suggest that a mitzvah sichlis, e.g. tzedaka, does not require a
bracha. You don’t need to thank G-d “asher
kidishanau b’mitzvosav v’tzivanu” for commanding you to do something that any
moral person would do anyway, even without the commandment.) The Rambam (Sefer haMitzvos #157) and Chinuch
both write that part of the mitzvah of haggadah is to praise and thank Hashem
for delivering us from Egypt. Thanking
someone for granting you freedom is an intuitive, rational response – not something that requires a Divine command.
It’s a big chiddush, no? Rav Wahrman asks: the gemara (Kid 34) says
women are obligated in ma’akah because it is not zman gerama. Even if it was zman gerama, why would women
not be obligated because building a fence so people don’t fall off your roof is
a rational thing to do? I am bothered by
the reduction the chiyuv of sipur to one of thanksgiving. That’s certainly an element of the mitzvah,
but is it *the* defining characteristic of the mitzvah? Something to chew on… 
Conjecture: את פתח לו
ReplyDeletewhat about the fact that the word והגדת is a לשון זכר?
ReplyDeletev'asisa ma'akeh l'gagecha (and other examples)
DeleteRav Wahrman's rebbi, Reb Leizer Silver, got it from his Rebbi, the Rogatchover. The Rogatchover in Vayakhel says that building the Mishkan is a chiyuv on women, despite its time-bound nature of only being by day, because it's a machshir for bringing korbanos, and women are chayav to bring korbanos. So you see that he holds that zman grama only patters when the mitzva exists in a vacuum. When it relates to something that is not zman grama, namely, when it also serves as a machshir for something else, or it is an expression of hakaras hatov, the idea of zman grama does not apply.
ReplyDeleteAs for your kashe, R Chaim, what if we looked at R Wahrman's pshat like this: The zman aspect of hagada is not the mechayeiv, it's a petur. Without the din of tes vov, I would have said that the mitzva is constant, and the chiddush of "bizman sheyeish...." is to limit the time for kiyum, not to create it. Zman Grama only patters if it's zman GRAMA, that the din of zman was goreim the mitzva. Here, the din of zman wasn''t gorem the mitzva, it was goreim the petur during other times. How do I know that's the case? Because hagada is a way of showing hakaras hatov, and it shouldn't be limited.
In fact, I would say that's the svara of both RLS and the Rogatchover. Because these mitzvos feed into other dinim, misvrara we should say they are constant, at least as constant as the mitzvos that they relate to. If we find time constraints on them, it's because the Torah diminished the time of chiyuv, not because it's only at that time does the chiyuv exist. That's not called zman grama.
ReplyDeleteCheck the link to R' Wahrman's piece. He says your idea as his own sevara -- the geder of sipur is hakas hatov and that is not something that is zman gerama. But then he presents R' Silver's ideas as a different pshat, namely that mitzvos sichliyos are in their own category.
DeleteAll I meant was to slightly improve what R Wahrman was saying, and point out that based on the improvement, they're both saying the same lomdus- ZG is only pattur when the Zman CREATES the chiyuv. Where it's a pratt in another general mitzvah, or it's a mitzva sichlis, then the Zman limitations are not functioning as a Grama, they don't CREATE the mitzvah, on the contrary, the dinim of Zman are a chiddush to LIMIT what would otherwise be constant. So even if it's Zemano Mesu'yam, it's not Zman Grama.
ReplyDeleteI realize that Maaka is a problem with RLS derech, but not with his, but the lomdus is, I think, the same. Without the lomdus, his svara is hard to understand- since when is hakaras hatov a mitzva? It's a midda tova. Bishlema the Rogatchover, binyan is a pratt in avoda. But RLS's sichlis and RW's midda tova, to me, are pretty much the same idea.
> One possible answer is that the chiyuv on women to recite the haggadah is really part and parcel of their mitzvah of eating matzah ... but it doesn’t really explain the Chinuch. If this is what the Chinuch meant, he should mention this detail in the mitzvah of matzah, not include women in the separate mitzvah of haggadah.
ReplyDeleteI think the way to work with this approach is by moving in the direction of sippur yetziat mitzrayim being "linked" in some sense to matza, not being a single mitzva. (This might be implicit in Rav Eisenberg's comments below about "related" mitzvos?)
For example, Pesachim 116b seems to indicate explicitly that if you hold eating matza is de-rabanan nowadays, then sippur yetzias mitzrayim is also de-rabanan ("ka-savri rabanan, matza bizman hazeh de-rabanan"). Why is that? How do all the rishonim explain this who count matza and sippur as separate mitzvos? I haven't researched this sugya, but my initial impression is that pesachim 116b implies strongly that matza and sippur yetzias mitrayim are "linked": if we are patur d'oraysa from matza nowadays then we are similarly patur from sippur y"m. Conversely and by analogy, since a woman is obligated d'oraysa in matza, she is also obligated in sippur y"m.
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DeleteWhy is she obligated in matzvah? That's also a mitzvas oseh shehazman grama...
Delete