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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>From: "Joseph C. Kaplan" <A
href="mailto:jkaplan@tenzerlunin.com">jkaplan@tenzerlunin.com</A><BR><BR>>>RAF
writes concerning whether mikveh should be included in the mitzvot
<BR>encompassing the entire body: "The mitzvah isn't to be in the mikveh, but to
<BR>abstain from certain activities while tamei, and perhaps also to be as tahor
<BR>as can be. The mikveh is the facilitator, but not the mitzvah itself.
KNLAD."<BR><BR>But the woman makes a bracha "asher kidshanu bemitzvotav
v'tzivanu al <BR>hatevilah" implying that it is the tevilah -- that is, the
immersion in the <BR>mikveh -- that is the mitzvah.<<<BR><BR>Joseph Kaplan
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>>>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Of course tevillah is a mitzva in the sense that once you became nidah,
if you are a married woman and if you want to be with your husband, you
have to go to the mikva. But you had no chiyuv to become nidah or to be
married. Or if you're a man living at the time of the Bais Hamikdash, it
would be a mitzva to go the mikva /if/ you had become tamei. But you
had no chiyuv to become tamei! So there is no "mitzva" to go the mikva in
the sense of "universal obligation."</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Whoever first said, "There are two mitzvos that are performed with the
entire body" had in mind this definition of mitzva: an obligation
incumbent upon everyone. (Or, incumbent upon every Jewish man, to be
more precise.)</FONT></DIV>
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size=2><BR> </DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============</B></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See what's new at <A title="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" href="http://www.aol.com?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001170" target="_blank">AOL.com</A> and <A title="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" href="http://www.aol.com/mksplash.adp?NCID=AOLCMP00300000001169" target="_blank">Make AOL Your Homepage</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>