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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>I</span> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>"Now Rav Freundel appears to be trying to suggest that there might be a<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>position which says that tephila is purely d'rabbanan, and yet while women<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>are obligated in it (since the gemora in Brochos 20b states this explicitly)<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>somehow the rabbis made up a different way of davening for men and women,<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>without telling us what the differences are at any point. However let us<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>think this through. If we can say this about this, surely we can say this<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>about any rabbinic mitzvah under the sun. Eg that the rabbis instituted the<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>mitzvah of the four cups, and they included women, but maybe they didn't<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>include women in the details, and the details and the times are completely<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>different for women - or pick whatever other rabbinic mitzvah you like in<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>>></span>which women are included."<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>And RM</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>B</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>luke</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> replied:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>In fact, this seems to be the shita of the Behag regarding women and Megilla reading. The Gemara says explicitly that women are chayavos in Megilla because of af hen hayu b'oso hanes, yet <span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>the Behag claims that women are only obligated in hearing the Megilla and not reading it and therefore cannot be motzi men. In other words, according to the Behag, women and men have <span style='color:#1F497D'>></span>fundamentally different chiyuvim when it comes to Megilla, women have a chiyuv to hear and men have a chiyuv to read even though we find no explicit mention of this in the Gemara. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Well not quite. Firstly the Behag understands the situation with Megilla to be modelled on that with Hakel as explained by Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah – an exposition that is indeed in the gemora: Chagiga 3a: hakel ea ha’am ha’anashim, hanashim v’hataf [Devarim 31:12] if the men come to learn, and the women come to listen what do the babies come to do? – in order to give reward on those who bring them”. Ie the men come to do one thing, learn, the women come to do a second and different thing, listen, and the babies come to do yet a third thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Modelling the rabbinic mitzvah of reading the megilla in public on the torah mitzvah of reading the Torah in public by Hakel is not anything like the stretch that I refer to above (and of course the difference in obligation regarding the Torah reading of Hakel can easily be understood to be derived from the difference in obligation between men and women in relation to talmud torah, a distinction everybody agrees to).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Secondly the Behag goes down this route because he is faced with what appear to be a contradictions between the various sources. Our Talmud, ie the Talmud Bavli (Megilla 4a) states, as you say, that women are obligated in krias megilla because af hen b’oso hanes and again in Arechin 2b-3a which states explicitly that women are kosher l’koreah es hamegila - again citing af hen b’oso hanes. However, the Talmud Yerushalmi says (perek 4 halacha 4)”Bar Kapara said: One must read the megilla before<i> </i>women and before minors, for they, too, were involved in the risk [she-af otam hayu ba-safek]. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi did so - he gathered his sons and the members of his household and read before them”. This may be the same as the Bavli, but may be supporting a weaker obligation of being read to, rather than actually reading. And then there is yet a third sources, the Tosephta, which says (Tosephta Megilla perek 2 halacha 7s:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>“All are obligated in the reading of the Megilla, kohanim, leviim and Yisraelim, .... women, slaves and minors are exempt and do not exempt the multitude”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Now the most common approach is to say, well where a Tosephta disagrees explicitly with the Bavli; even if the Yerushalmi might seem to suggest a half way house of being read to, the Bavli trumps, and we posken like the Bavli. However the Behag’s shita is, in these circumstances, understandable – especially given the gemora regarding Hakel. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I therefore don’t think we can take the Behag’s shita as a more general licence to differentiate between men and women in terms of form of chiyuv in the absence of (a) a Tosephta or similar chazalic source that directly contradicts our gemora with one saying chayav and the other saying patur; and (b) a different but very closely related parallel (Torah) mitzvah in which a distinction between men and women’s obligations is explained in our gemora on which the mitzvah could have been modelled and which makes clear the nature of the distinctions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>And, one might add, the Behag is a rishon. There is yet a further hurdle to finding such distinctions when they were not even discovered by the rishonim. To argue that the existence of the Behag’s shita here gives a general licence to us today to find fundamentally different chiyuvim between men and women in any other mitzvah is a yet another large stretch.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Chana<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>