[Avodah] Women's zimun

[Meir Shinnar]

> RMB
> : > The formalist's answer would depend on whether he emphasizes Shas
> : > (must) or BY (may) or MB (ought not).
me
> : No one has brought any support from any classical source for don't -
> : only that it wasn't done - but without the leap that therefore it
> : shouldn't be done.
>
> : The MB never says it shouldn't be done - he brings down that the
> : minhag is not like the gra - who requires it...
RMB
> No, but it is at this point a text that implies "ought not",
> a codification of the minhag avos argument. I did intentially write
> "ought not" rather than "can not".
Not trying to be repetitious.  However,  the text does not imply
"ought not" - unless one is trying to read into it.  It is dangerous
to read current preconceptions and problems into the text.

The Mishna Berura is merely bringing proof that the general minhag is
not to pasken like the gra - who requires women to make zimun.  If it
was the norm for many communities for women to make zimun, one
couldn't conclude whether they paskened like the gra - or it was a
reshut that they did. However, those communities who didn't say zimun
(and I think that there is agreement that that was the communal norm
in most communities (even if individual women might have said it) -
one can readily conclude that they did not hold like the gra.
However, the extra step of ought not is not there.

You are looking at it from a perspective that it seems the mishna
brura is suggesting that this is minhag avot, but one has to be
careful - because it is not at all  clear what the minhag avot
actually was.

The mishna brura brings a rationale that suggests that the minhag avot
was not that women deliberately did not say zimun (ie, that there was
a minhag for them not to do it), but that given that women would have
a difficult time saying zimun, givn their lack of knowledge of Hebrew,
 the minhag avot was that women did not have to - against the gra.

I would add that in cases where the mishna brura thinks that it is an
"ought not" case - even if not a "can not" - he is not shy about
saying it (eg, women saying kaddish ...) - but he doesn't here say
that one  one should follow this minhag or one should not be meshane.
He even discusses as a possibility the ba'al hatanya's suggestion that
when 3 men and 3 women eat together, one may have two zimunim - the
men and the women being mezamen separately.
Meir Shinnar