1) Shitas haRambam is that there is a mitzvah to be mekadesh shabbos "b'knisaso u'b'yitzi'aso," when shabbos comes in and when shabbos goes out. Meaning, that both kiddush and havdalah are d'oraysa, and therefore, since it is a mitzvah of Shabbos, both men and women are equally obligate in both. In contrast, the Orchos Chaim holds that havdalah is just a chiyuv derabbanan, and women have no obligation in the mitzvah. Many Rishonim split the difference and hold that havdalah is indeed derabbanan, but the takanah was made "k'ein d'oraysa," patterened after the chiyuv d'oraysa of kiddush, and women are therefore bligated in the mitzvah.
R' Ovadya Yosef (Yechaveh Da'as vol 4 #27) writes l'halacha women should be able to recite havdalah based on a sfeik sfeika (R' Ovadya loves to build sfeik sfeikos): safeik whether the halacha is like the Rambam and they have a chiyuv d'oraysa, and even if havdalah is only derabbaban, maybe the halacha is like the Rishonim who disagree with the Orchos Chaim.
He proves his point by drawing an analogy to the Terumas haDeshen (#37) that we discussed last week: if a person is not sure if he missed counting a night of sefira, he may continue counting with a bracha -- safeik whether the halacha is like the most Rishonim that view each night as an independent mitzvah and you can continue counting with a bracha even if you miss a night, and even if halacha is like BH"G that all 49 days are one mitzvah, safeik whether you really missed counting or not. Here too, a sfeik sfeika allows a person to fulfill a mitzvah with a bracha.
R' Ovadya asks on himself: the rule of safeik brachos l'hakeil usually precludes saying a bracha even in a case of sfeik sfeika. (The hesber b'pashtus is as follows: sfeik sfeika is a rov, and a rov just means we are 51% sure, not that we have removed all doubt and elimated the safeik. Therefore, we are still left with a safeik bracha.) Why are these cases different?
I wish I could offer you an answer, but I' have none. I don't understand R' Ovadya's explanation or have a hesber. The way R' Ovadya puts it is that these cases (sefira, havdalah) are different than a normal sfeika sfeika in hilchos brachos because there is a tzad d'oraysa that is mechayeiv doing the mitzvah. I looked up the Th"D (here) and am not even sure that's what the Th"D means (I'll take R' Ovadya's word for it), nor do I understand why that distinction makes a difference with regards to the issue of bracha.
2) Definition of temurah -- a korban copy.
( "Shitas haRambam...havdalah...d'oraysa"
ReplyDeletehow then can haRambam say the [d'oraysa] text of havdalah includes 'ha'mavdil bein kodesh l'chol', if money exchanges and business are only excluded from Shabbos d'rabbanan? are they not 'chol'? or maybe shekel ha'kodesh means just that, holy money, consistent with day 7? ...if oneg [Shabbos] means no business (Yeshayahu 58:13), oneg must then be d'rabbanan, but R' Leibel Eiger's (1st paragraph, DC, April 23) justification of 7 days for the metzora, including "oneg", seems to be d'oraysa; or no, he could hold oneg d'rabbanan: the metzora in isolation cannot do business/spend,receive because of d'oraysa circumstances [delight by default], though he otherwise, d'oraysa, could... )