[Avodah] Vayeitze "Watch Whom You Marry"

[Joshua Meisner]

On Nov 14, 2007 2:05 PM,  <T613K at aol.com> wrote:
> Someone else also brought up that point.  But "Taryag mitzvos shomarti" is
> shverr even without Yakov marrying two sisters.  NO ONE can do all 613 --
> unless you are a man, a woman, a kohen, a levi, a Yisrael, a king, a judge,
> a witness, the brother in law of a childless widow, and so on, all at the
> same time.   "Taryag mitzvos shomarti" just means, "I kept the Torah"  -- I
> kept the mitzvos I had to keep, I served Hashem -- despite Lavan's
> influence.  "Shamarti" doesn't even have to mean "I kept" -- it can also
> mean, "I upheld, I guarded."

The word Shamar is sometimes used to refer to a prevention of a
negative, rather than the fulfillment of a positive - for example,
Shmiras Shabbos as opposed to Zechiras Shabbos and the statement of R'
Avin that appears in several places in Shas that the term Hishamer (as
well as Pen and Al) always refers to a negative commandment.  Hence,
the usage of the word Shamarti as opposed to, e.g., Kiyamti could be
true even if Yaakov Avinu did not fulfill every single mitzvah, so
long as he did not desecrate any of them.  If this is the case,
though, the question re: marrying two sisters would still be an issue
- and there are probably other asin referred to using the word Shamar
that would also have to be explained.

Joshua Meisner