Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Moed Kattan 11b - Chol Hamoed vs. Aveilus

The gemara seems to assume that chol hamoed is an issur melacha d'oraysa as rashi implies (although tosafos chagiga 18a and the rosh at the beginning of the meseches learns the gemara to be lav davka) and aveilus is only d'rabonon (or at least melacha during aveilus is only d'rabonon as tosafos points out 14b). The machlokes in the gemara seems to be that R' Ashi holds that it is more mistaver to be machmir by chol hamoed which is d'oraysa (since we are meikil on chol hamoed certainly we are meikil for aveilus) than aveilus d'rabonon. R Shisha seems to hold that it is more mistaver to be machmir by aveilus which is d'rabonon than chol hamoed which is d'oraysa. This seems a bit strange. Are they arguing in general whether we are concerned to be mechazek drabonon's more than Torah laws?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the Rosh says that the first opinion agrees about the relative severity of melacha on chol hamoed versus aveilus, but is more willing to allow mileches chol hamoed because an avel can have somebody else do it for him whereas on chol hamoed you are stuck because all Jews need to observe the laws. Obviously, this fits very nicely into the next couple of lines of gemara.

Avi Lebowitz said...

shkoyach!!

Yossie Schonkopf said...

מה אם התוספות בי"ב ע"א שמלאכה באבילות דאורייתא או כעין דאורייתא...

Avi Lebowitz said...

i don't think that tosafos means that melacha during aveilus is d'oraysa or k'eiyn d'oraysa, but rather the concept of aveilus is d'oraysa. melacha during aveilus is definitely only derabonon. see rosh in third perek for various opinions as to which part of aveilus is deoraysa. see also tosafos chagiga 18a that the s'mach of aveilus is a pasuk midiveri kabala i.e. k'ein d'oraysa.