Status III: Positive Time-Bound Mitzvot מעמד האישה (ג): מצוות עשה שהזמן גרמא

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POSITIVE TIME-BOUND MITZVOT

LEGAL EXPLANATION

ESSENTIALIST EXPLANATION

Rav S. R. Hirsch, Commentary to Vayikra 23:43 (Judaica Press translation)

The Torah did not impose these mitzvot on women because it did not consider them necessary to be demanded from women. All time-bound mitzvot are meant, by symbolic procedures, to bring certain facts, principles, ideas and resolutions afresh to our minds from time to time to fortify us to realize them to keep them. God’s Torah takes it for granted that our women have greater fervor and more faithful enthusiasm for their God-serving calling [than men], and that this calling runs less danger in their case than in that of men from the temptations which occur in the course of business and professional life. Accordingly it does not find it necessary to give women these repeated spurring reminders to remain true to their calling…

Rav S. R. Hirsch, 'The Jewish Woman,' Judaism Eternal

While fully appreciating the special and deeply implanted characteristics of the female sex, the Sages also attribute to it complete spiritual and intellectual equality with the male.

Sylvia Barack Fishman and Daniel Parmer, Matrilineal ASCENT/Patrilineal DESCENT, p. 1, 69

…Today American Jewish boys and men have fewer connections to Jews and Judaism than girls and women in almost every venue and in every age…Gender makes less of a difference among Orthodox Jews: the social capital of men and women within Orthodoxy is equal…American males are less attached to Jewish life not because men are innately “less religious” than women in some essential psychological way, but because American culture and society value religious activities and behaviors for women but devalue them for men. Moreover, those aspects of religion that men are typically more attracted to—namely religious activities—are not regarded as religious by the Christian-shaped society that values religious belief over religious behavior.

Rav Menachem M. Schneerson 'Address to Convention of N'shei Ubnos Chabad,' 25 Iyar 5744

Women are freed from performing mitzvos which are obligatory only at a specific time (e.g., tzitzis, which is obligatory only during the day). The AriZal writes concerning such mitzvos: “When the male performs the mitzvah, it is unnecessary that the woman should also do them separately, for she has already been included with him at the time when he does the mitzvah… This is the meaning of our Sages’ statement, ‘One’s wife is as one’s body.’”…In other words, when Torah frees a women from certain mitzvos, it frees her only from doing them — so that she can devote her time and energies to her unique mission. The state of wholeness and perfection that is attained, and the reward that accrues, from these mitzvos, does pertain to women also — through her husband performing them.

PROTECTED ROLE

Rabbi Saul Berman, 'The Status of Women in Halakhic Judaism,' pp. 16-17

While not demanding adherence to one particular role, it is nevertheless clear that since for most of our history, our continuation as a people depended upon the voluntary selection by women of the role of wife-mother-homemaker, the law would and did encourage the exercise of that choice…. Exemption would be a tool used by the Torah to achieve a particular social goal, namely to assure that no legal obligation would interfere with the selection by Jewish women of a role which was centered almost exclusively in the home. However, it is vital to emphasize that even with these exemptions, the wife-mother-homemaker role is not the mandated, or exclusively proper role, though it is clearly the preferred and therefore protected role.

Rabbanit Malke Bina, 'Symposium on Women and Jewish Education,' p. 15

I have always believed that women are released from positive time-bound mitzvot in order that they have more flexibility and more choices.

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