[Avodah] Explanation of the Tur?

[Chana Luntz via Avodah]

A thought just struck me, and I wondered if this chimed with anybody.


The Rambam says (Hilchot Talmud Torah perek 1 halacha 13):

אמרו חכמים כל המלמד את בתו תורה כאילו למדה תפלות במה דברים אמורים בתורה שבעל
פה אבל תורה שבכתב לא ילמד אותה לכתחלה ואם למדה אינו כמלמדה תפלות.


 Anyone who teaches his daughter Torah it is as if he teaches her tiflut.
With regard to what are we speaking, with Torah she baal peh but Torah she
bichtav even though he should not teach her ab initio, if he taught her it
is not as though he taught her tiflut.

The Tur says the same except that he has Torah shebichtav and Torah sheba'al
peh around the other way (Tur Yoreh Deah Hilchot Talmud Torah siman 246):

אמרו חכמים כל המלמד לבתו תורה כאילו מלמדה תפלות בד"א בתורה שבכתב אבל בתורה
שבע"פ לא ילמד אותה בתחילה ואם מלמדה אינו כמלמדה תפלות 

The Sages said all who teaches his daughter Torah it is as if he teaches her
tiflut.  With regard to what are we speaking with Torah shebichtav but with
Torah shebaal peh he should not teach her ab initio, but if he taught her it
is not as though he taught her Tiflut 

The Beis Yosef says it is a scribal error in the Tur, and should be the same
way as the Rambam, and that is how he has the statement in the Shulchan
Aruch, and the Taz agrees, pointing to Hakel.

The Prisha notes that the Beis Yosef says that it is a scribal error but
adds:

ומכל מקום יש ליתן טעם קצת לגירסת ספרי הטור שבכולם נכתב ונדפס כן מפני שיש
הפסד יותר כשמוציאה תורה שבכתב בדברי הבאי מאשר יש בתורה שבעל פה וק"ל

In any event there is to give a small reason for this version in the books
of the Tur, since with all of them it is written and published so, because
there is a greater loss when Torah shebichtav is brought out as words of
nonsense than with Torah shebal peh.

However, in describing what is permitted to teach women in Shut HaMaharil
Siman 199, the Maharil writes:


וללמוד לנשים אעפ"י שצריכו' לקיים כל לא תעשה ועשה נמי שלא הזמן גרמאא מ"מ אין
ללמדה דהוי כמלמדה תפלות כדאיתא פרק היה נוטלב ויליף ליה מ - אני חכמה שכנתי
ערמהג כיון שנכנס' חכמה בלבו של אדם נכנס' בו ערמומית, וכן פי' רש"יד ז"לה מתוך
כך תעשה דברים בהצנע, וא"כ חיישינן שמא תבא לידי קלקול לפי שדעתן קלות, ואפילו
כי היא מצוה קרינן ביה עת לעשות כו'ז דיצא שכרו בהפסדו, וכל שכן דאינן מצוות
...
ואי משום דידעו לקיים המצות, אפשר שילמדו ע"פ הקבלה השרשים והכללותי וכשיסתפקו
ישאלו למורה כאשר אנו רואין בדורינו שבקיאות הרבה בדיני מליחה והדחה וניקור
והלכות נדה וכיוצא בזה, והכל ע"פ הקבלה מבחוץ,

And to teach women even though they need to fulfil all the positive
commandments and negatives also that are not time bound, in any event, we
should not teach her since it is like teaching her tiflut as it says in
perek notlev and we learn it from “I am wisdom that dwells in cunning”, when
wisdom enters so does cunning since when wisdom enters the heart of a person
there also enters into it cunning and according to the explanation of Rashi
because of this she will do things privately, and if so we are concerned
that she will come to damage since their knowledge is light and even though
it is considered a mitzvah eit l’asot lashem so that one should not drown
out the reward by loss and all the more so where there is not a mitzvah
...
And if in order that they should know to fulfil the mitzvot it is possible
to teach them according to the tradition the sources and the general rules
and when they are in doubt they should ask to a teacher, just like we see in
our generation that many are experts in many laws such as salting and
hadacha and nikur and the halachot of nidah and similar to this, all is by
way of tradition from outside,


And then the Chofetz Chaim in his defence of Beit Ya'akov type schooling in
Lekutei Halachot Sotah 21  writes about what used to happen in previous
generations:

ונראה דכל זה דוקה בזמנים שלפנינו שכל אחד היה דר במקום אבותנו וקבלת האבות היה
חזק מאוד אצל כל אחד ואחד להתנהנ בדרך שדרכנו אבותנו וכמאמר שאל אביך ויגדך בזה
היינו יכולים לומר שלא תלמיד תורה ותסמוך בהנהגה על אבותיה הישרים


But it seems that all this was dafka in the times that were prior to us when
each on lived in the place of his fathers and the tradition of the fathers
was very strong by each one to go in the way that our fathers went and like
it says “ask your father and he shall tell you” and in this it was possible
to say that one should not teach Torah and rely in their practice on their
upright fathers.

But hold on a second.  Isn't what the Chofetz Chaim is describing as the
ideal in past times, and the Maharil describing as the correct way to teach
women, in fact the classic definition of Torah Sheba'al peh, as it was
taught prior to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi writing down the Torah sheba'al peh in
the form of the Mishna?  That the Torah sheba'al peh was passed from father
to son by oral transmission (albeit that at one point schools were instated
for those lacking fathers who could teach them)?

And on the other hand doesn't the Rosh (ie father of the Tur) famously say
that today one fulfils the mitzvah of writing a sefer Torah by writing other
seforim in Hilkhot Sefer Torah, chap. 1 as is brought by  the Tur and
Shulhan Arukh in Yoreh De'ah 270:2?

So is it possible that what the Tur was actually suggesting was that what
the Rambam wrote was impossible, because there is no way of teaching women
to do the mitzvot in which they are obligated without Torah sheba'al peh -
as the vast majority of the details are sourced in Torah sheba'al peh, and
if they were only to be taught what is in Torah shebichtav, they would all
turn into Karaites!  And indeed that women were, as the Chofetz Chaim
suggests, taught in the home with the tradition handed over by their fathers
in the same way as Torah sheba'al peh has always been learnt all the way
back to Moshe Rabbanu.  While if you understand Torah shebichtav as
including mishna and gemora and rishonim, all so long as they have been
written down, then one could indeed understand that as being a possible
practical distinction - ie  not to teach women to read and write and
understand what is in the written seforim? 

Now perhaps one might say that if the Rambam had poskened like Rav Elazar in
Gitten 60b as understood by Rashi, that Torahshebichtav is the majority and
Torah sheba'al peh is the minority, because he includes in Torah shebichtav
anything that is learnt out of the Torah by way of midrash or gezera shava
etc, then it might be possible to understand that by and large women could
both learn to do the mitzvot incumbent on them and simultaneously avoid
Torah sheba'al peh, but he doesn't, as in his introduction the Mishna he
categorises Torah Sheba'al peh into five categories, and is clearly in this
poskening like Rav Yochanan.  So how, according to the Rambam, did women
know what to do if they were never taught Torah sheba'al peh, even ba'al
peh,  remembering that it is the Rema's addition to the Shulchan Aruch in
the name of the Smag (actually Smak) via the Agur that adds in the halacha
that women need to learn all the mitzvot that are relevant to them?

Is not the Tur's version actually the one that makes more logical sense -
especially if you explain Hakel as per the gemora in Chagiga that the women
came to listen (ie hear it orally, without looking at the text)?  Not that
this would seem to explain Rabi Eliezer himself, as Rabbi Eliezer in the
Mishna in Sotah 21a - objected to women learning that sometimes drinking the
Sotah water would not result in immediate death, and in the Yerushalmi,
Sotah perek 3 daf 19 column 1 halacha 4 he objected to telling a woman why
there are three different types of deaths listed vis a vis the chet haegel
when there was only one sin - both of which  pieces of learning were, at
least in his day, definitely Torah sheba'al peh.  So given that the Rambam
poskened like Rabbi Eliezer, he would have needed, if a distinction was to
be made, have to phrase it the way he did.  But maybe what the Tur was
saying is that, Rabbi Eliezer or no, the Rambam's solution is not workable,
and given the way the gemora explains Rabbi Eliezer's limud from “I am
wisdom that dwells in cunning”, and that already in his day that kind of
learning was found in Torah shebichtav, the whole thing can be made workable
by turning it the other way around?

Has anybody seen this suggested anywhere?  Any thoughts?

Regards

Chana