Friday, March 16, 2007

Moed Kattan 7b - Pushing off Mitzvos

I once saw a fabulous ma'areh makom on this gemara quoted by R' Schachter (from YU).
The gemara implies that we need a special pasuk to give the kohen a heter not to see negaim on yom tov and during the sheva brachos. The Chazon Ish (Negaim 13:17 - last one in Negaim) discusses whether one is allowed to push off a positive mitzvah that does not have any time limit and do it later. Is the pushing off the mitzvah tantamount to being mevatel the mitzvah? The Chazon Ish explains that the gemara implies we need a special pasuk to give a heter to the kohain to push off seeing the negah (acc. to one opinion we even need a special pasuk for a heter to push it off for a d'var mitzvah), which indicates that without a pasuk the torah recognizes this procrastination (acc. to one opinion even if it is for a mitzvah) to be a violation of the mitzvas aseh. The Chazon Ish then pushes this off by saying maybe Negaim are more chamur or maybe there is just a ma'alah of zrizin to do it immediately and we need a pasuk to teach that in this case one should wait and there is no advantage of zrizin. He brings a proof from moshe Rabbeinu who settled into the hotel before doing milah to his son and was punished bec. it was inappropriate for moshe to do that, but clearly moshe would not have done an issur. It must be that delaying a mitzvah does not constitue a violation of the mitzvah in any way.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rav Schachter shlit"a is mechaleik between reiyas negaim (where there is no set time to do the mitzvah) and bris milah (where there is a set time to do the mitzvah. The delay of a mitzvah with a set time is a violation of zerizin makdimin whereas based on this gemara any mitzvah with no time stated explicitly must be done at the earliest possible time, and is assur to delay. He says this in the context of the mitzvah of pru u'rvu, suggesting that putting off having children is more similar to reiyas negaim than to milah in this regard.