[Avodah] Women and Tallis

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 04:15:07PM +0100, Chana Luntz wrote:
: But it is more than that.  It is not just that the minhag is for a man to
: make a point of performing the mitzvah qiyumis with a tallis of that
: description at random points in the day, unconnected to anything else, it is
: that it is the minhag for a man to make a point of performing the mitzvah
: quyumis with a tallis of that description *while davening*...

But that can't be the way RYBS would describe it, since that would make
the focus of men's practice to be something other than borrowing the
matbei'ah of a mitzvah.

...
:> There is no mitzvah to wear a tallis -- only the tzitzis on it.

: Agreed.  And there is no mitzvah to float ones hands over a korban, only to
: do proper smicha...

We understand women doing semichah differently. I understood the gemara
as saying that women put their hands on the animal's head and press down
even though we presume they will fail to move that head. Not actually
hovering without touching.

In which case, it's as close as they could do to the original matbei'ah --
pressing down on the animal's head with all their might. The differences
are the assumption that most women would fail at it and the fact that
(by gezeiras hakasuv) it's not the qorban's pro-forma semichah.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 17th day, which is
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