[Avodah] Minhag Yisroel

[Chana Luntz]

RJB writes:

> But I don't see anyone saying that the *content* is tiflus.

Not strictly true.  The gemora, at least in the hava mina (and arguably
in the maskana), understands the Mishna as saying the content is tiflus,
as it says on the top of 21b "tiflus salka datecha" - is it really as
though he is teaching tiflus (as Rashi clarifies, because he has just
called Torah tiflus) and answers - it is as if *kilu* he is teaching
tiflus.  
  
> Rather, the clear sense of the mishnah, is that by teaching 
> her Torah as some object, regardless of content, teaches her tiflus,
because of 
> the bitter-waters protection.  
> 
> 1. If a father teaches his daughter, she will have Torah 
> learning. 2. A woman who has learned is protected from the 
> bitter waters test 3. One who is protected from the 
> bitter-waters test can stray without consequences.
> 
> Therefore, if a father teaches his daughter Torah, he gives 
> her the tools to allow her to stray without consequences.  
> Not that learning "when it says min hatzon, it means tzon 
> that have not been used for mishkav beheimah" or "elu metzios 
> shelo elu chayav lehachriz" is specifically tiflusdic 
> content, but the fact of the teaching indirectly allows her 
> to stray without consequences.

Well that is one way of understanding it, but there are at least two
other possibilities:

A) that by teaching her Torah, she will end up learning at some point
the fact that learning protects from the bitter waters, and armed with
that bit of knowledge, she will be tempted to stray.  That is  - it is a
bit like the small minded people who only do not speed because they are
afraid they might be caught and punished and not because they understand
the wider picture that the government has legislated against speeding to
protect society.  If you teach them how to avoid being caught (eg where
the speed cameras are) then all you are doing is encouraging them to
speed.

B) that teaching her Torah will sharpen her mind and make her cleverer.
And if somebody's natural tendency is towards immorality anyway, then
making them cleverer just makes them better at achieving that goal -
just as if somebody has a tendency towards the criminal, teaching them
skills of espionage is likely to make them a better criminal should they
choose that direction.

Now interpretation A) fits better with the simple language of the
Mishna, because the reason given by Ben Azai for why a father is
*obligated* to teach his daughter Torah is because "if she were to drink
[the bitter waters] she would know that that it was her merits that
achieved the suspension for her" - that is, if she gets caught and
drinks, she does not totally lose her faith in the system when she
doesn't die.  It would then follow that when Rabbi Eliezer follows and
says that anyone who teaches his daughter Torah teaches her tiflus, is
saying - well if you teach her that, it is not just that she will know
after she has drunk, but she will know before she drinks, and that will
make her more likely to stray.

However B) seems more consonant with the gemora and the rishonim.
Because the gemora goes on to explain various bits of this mishna on 21b
- including, as referred to above, "kilu lumda tiflus" and Rashi there
explains this to mean - because from its content she will understand
cleverness (perhaps craftiness or cunning would be a better translation
of arumomis - think of the nachash) and so she will do her [by
implication immoral] deeds undetected.  And the the gemora goes on Amar
Rabbi Abahu, what is the source of Rabbi Eliezer?  Ans: as it is written
in [Mishlei 8:12] I am wisdom that dwells with craftiness.

> That's what I see as part of the usual diyuk, perhaps it's 
> only used in the post-Bais-Yaakov era, but it seems to be the 
> plain sense of the  mishnah, without the mishnah being reused to ban
all women's 
> Torah learning.
> 
> And it seems that this diyuk would NOT distinguish between 
> the father and the third party as teacher.  Nor would it 
> actually be operative since 300 BCE or whatever, when the 
> bitter-waters test stopped working.

Neither would explanation A) be operative post bitter waters - but you
see B) would.

And you see, you further need to learn not just the mishna and the
gemora, but at the very least tosphos as well to understand how this is
being understood throughout the ages.  Because Tosphos there on 21b
brings the Yerushalmi that I referred to at
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol23/v23n164.shtml#10 - where Rabbi
Eliezer refuses to answer a quite lamdishe question on the chet haegel,
despite the fact that by not answering this one question he lost his son
a significant parnassa (she no longer gave him 300 kor of ma'aseh a
year) and where Rabbi Eliezer's response to his son was that it is
better to be burned that to give over divrei torah to women.  That is,
once you understand that we appear to posken like Rabbi Eliezer, it is
not illogical to use Rabbi Eliezer's other statements, as found in the
Yerushalmi, to understand his position in the Bavli - and that would
seem to mitigate against both your understanding and understanding A)
above.  

And further the meforshim (see eg the Beis Yosef and the Bach) discuss
where the Rambam gets his distinction between Torah shebaal peh and
Torah shebichtav from (because he says that while lechatchila one should
not teach a woman Torah shebichtav, if he does, then it is not as if he
teaches tiflus).  And they answer that this comes from the discussion
regarding Hakel at the beginning of Chaggiga, which states that the men
come to learn torah and the women to listen - so if the women come to
listen, and are obligated to come to listen to the reading of the Torah,
how could it be tiflus - or rather, if it was tiflus, it would be assur
for women to learn even by way of listening and derech arai, and hence
the answer is it isn't tiflus and therefore Rabbi Eliezer must have been
referring to Torah she baal peh - but nevertheless, while it is OK to
have women listen to Torah in the context of a mitzva, in the words of
the Bach "avel limud derech kavuah l'chatchila lo".

Earlier RMB wrote:

> RJJB and I are making very different diyuqim.
> 
> "Chakhamim tzivu" is far from common, when compared to 
> "chayav" or "assur", and even less common than "tiqnu". I 
> therefore do not make RnCL's assumption that there is an 
> actual lav deRabbanan involved in a father teaching his 
> daughters Torah. Otherwise, why the rare language?

And then

> : Now, I struggle to see "tzivu Chazal" as anything but an issur....
> 
> I struggle to see why Maran BY wouldn't then say "assur", 
> like he does tens of thousands of other times. Or gezeirah, 
> or taqanah, or any of the usual idioms. In the case of an odd 
> turn of phrase that seems to be a synonym, you're assuming 
> it's synonymous and I'm assuming the phrase is used bedavka 
> because there is a different connotation. I'm not sure either 
> of us are working with more than personal assumption, though.
> 

Well the language is not Maran's, but rather that of the Rambam ("tzivu
Chachamim").  It is relatively unusual though, compared to assur - so I
did a Bar Ilan search on the term (both tzivu Chazal and tzivu
Chachamim) in the Rambam and BY/Tur/Shulchan Aruch (because here is
really where Bar Ilan comes into its own).

But before I get to the results of that, the reason why I tended to
understand tzivu Chazal as being a synonym is because it is hard to
understand it any other way when the Beis Yosef is saying that we posken
like Rabbi Eliezer in the Mishna, and Tosphos is bringing Rabbi Eliezer
in the Yerushalmi as being willing to be burnt rather than give over
torah to women (and a discussion about the three types of death in the
chet haegel no less, the sort of thing that a good Beis Ya'akov girl
might well be learning).  If anything, the language of the Rambam is
extremely mild in that context.

Anyhow, back to Bar Ilan.  Tzivu Chazal did not turn up much, but tzivu
Chachamim, while turning up only four references in the Shulchan Aruch,
came up 29 times in the Rambam.

The four in the Shulchan Aruch were: 

- Yoreh Deah siman 255 si'if 1: v'chen tzivu Chachamim - oseh
shabbatecha chol v'al titztarech l'brios (hmm, I think that one is
honoured in the breach quite a lot)
-- Yoreh Deah Siman 394 s'if 6: kol me sheano misavel k'mo shetzivu
Chachamim harei zeh achsarei
-  Even Haezer siman 58 si'if 1: to give at least something from his
possessions to his daughter (to marry her off)
- Even Haezer siman 76 si'if 7: that a man should not marry more than
four wives, even if he has lots of money, so that he can give them onah
at least once a month

Now these four are amongst those of the Rambam, but to give you a
flavour of the remaining ones (without going through the full list).
The first ten are in hilchos deos - and include things like tzivu
Chachamim b'derech eretz shelo ochel adam basar ela teavon and kol
ma'asav yhiu lshem shamayim.  Two are in hilchos sanhedrin and are
warnings to the judges about how to judge. One is about being careful in
nitilas yadayim.  One is about distancing oneself from a bad neighbour.
One is about a woman being tzanua within her house, one is about a
husband being mechabed his wife (and another other is vice versa).

Ie they all seem about interpersonal relations, proper conduct and
derech eretz - and actually an awful lot of them strike one as being
honoured in the breach (don't eat too much etc), although not having
more than four wives does seem to me to be something closer to a proper
gezera (remember the Aruch l'Ner's use of this in my discussion on
should one person do a vadai mitzvah).  But even so, you actually may be
on to something, it is a completely fascinating read, and I recommend
you do the search yourself, as the cumulative effect is quite
impressive.  I would also I note that other rishonim (eg the Ramban)
turned up in my search did tend to use tzivu Chachamim in the way I
understood it, as a synonym for a gezera of Chazal, so, to the extent
that this is not completely synonomous, it seems to be a peculiarity of
the Rambam.

But of course the Rambam is very, very precise, and a slight shift in
language is likely to be significant for him, and the diyuk you noticed
may well have been fully intended by him.  However, even if that is what
the Rambam intended, and because it is the Rambam's language, that is
what came across into the Shulchan Aruch, I really struggle to see that
the meforshim, with their general comments bringing Rabbi Eliezer in the
Yerushalmi, understood it that way.  It is a gem though, really very
very interesting and I am not sure how far it extends and quite what it
means.  It is also the sort of thing that unless you were completely
baki in the entirety of Shas Poskim, you would have struggled to turn
this up as clearly and with any certainty prior to the existence of Bar
Ilan.

> So then why "tzivu"? Because they commanded us dads not to do 
> something stupid. Not qua "vetzivanu" (via proxy) but as 
> simply out of concern for the girl.
> SheTir'u baTov!
> -micha

Regards

Chana