Friday, July 20, 2007

Yevamos 79a - Gezeira on Nissinim

Explanation of 2 mehalchim in tosafos about the gezeira on Nissinim:
1. Moshe and Yehoshua were gozer to make them slaves, but since the slavery was only for a set period of time, they are not included in the la'av of kadeish. Since people perceive them as slaves, they also forbade marrying them. After the destruction of the mikdash, there was no longer an issur, but Dovid was gozer against marrying them since they did not have midos of Yisroel. In order to uphold the issur to marry them, Dovid was gozer that they should be slaves (opposite of moshe and yehoshua, who upheld the slavery by assuring marriage). In the time of Rebbi, they wanted to be matir the issur marriage imposed by Dovid, by being mafkir the right of slavery. But, since Dovid gave ownership rights to klal yisroel and to mizbeiach, they could not be matir the rights of the mizbeiach and therefore it would be inappropriate to be matir marriage since they still look like slaves (similar to moshe and yehoshua's gezeira).
2. Moshe and Yehoshua and Dovid were all gozer regular slavery. Although Moshe and Yehoshua were temporary gezeiros, it still gave them the status of slaves who are assur m'diorayasa from marrying kehal hashem. In the times of Rebbi they realized that they could not be matir the issur of marriage, since they realized that they could not release the ownership of the mizbeiach, and they would remain slaves. Nevertheless, they wanted to free them from work, but then they realized that people would soon forget that they were slaves who were still owned by mizbeiach and would come to marry them, so we could not free our ownership of them.

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