Resources for Moed Katan 8

Daf A Week

Rabbi Yitzchok Gutterman

  1. The משנה says that ר' מאיר holds that one can rebury their relatives on חול המועד since it is a שמחה for him. רש"יas well as the רע"ב in משניות says that he has no צער since he is reburying his family relatives in their קברי אבותיו. The issue is that the גמרא seems to say, at least in the מסקנא, that everyone agreed that it was a sad thing to do and not a שמחה-- they only argued about how sad it was, where ר' מאיר said that since you were so involved in the רגל you wouldn’t notice the sadness. See the שפת אמת here who explains that really ר' מאיר held that reburying a relative was a cause of שמחה for the person. However, חז"ל mandated that a person be נוהג אבילות as a כבוד for the מת. The גמרא is saying, however, that since today is חול המועד there is no obligation to be מתאבל. Consequently,  there is only שמחה.  The רש"י in the גמרא doesn’t seem to fit with this explanation, but it could certainly answer the רע"ב.

 

  1. The גמרא says that you are not allowed to be מספּיד someone within thirty days of a רגל. There is a מחלוקת רב ושמואל as to what the reason is. רב says you can’t be מספּיד because you might spend your money for being עולה לרגל on a ספּדן. However, שמואל says it is because you will be upset for thirty days and will cause be unhappiness on the מועד. The גמרא says the נפקא מינה is if the ספּדן is free. What is immediately striking is why the גמרא didn’t say the נפקא מינה is whether the דין applies nowadays at all since there is no עליה לרגל today?! See the רמב"ןin תורת האדם who says that in fact the רי"ץ גיאות Paskens that it does not apply anymore. However, the רמב"ן and ריטב"א say that it does apply today since even though the reason doesn’t apply, since once a גזרה is made you need a ב"ד גדול ממנו בחכמה ובמנין to uproot it. Also, the גמרא may have been לאו דוקא when it said money for being עולה לרגל, but it meant you may spend the money you had set aside for general רגל

    Another question about this גמרא is that it says a מת is not forgotten for 30 days, when we know the גמרא in ברכות on דף נ"ח says it is only forgotten after 12 months, which is why we have mourning for a parent for 12 months. Rav Elyashiv in his ספר answers that we must say there are different levels of forgetting and it is just more intense in the first 30 days, as one forgets a little after that.

  2. The גמרא says that you can cut the wood for the coffin בצנעה. Seeתוספות ד"ה ומנסרן who says that allowing one to saw boards in private is not a contradiction to the concept of מראית עין אסור אפילו בחדרי חדרים because it is similar to the case of צינור ועל בו קשקשים. He doesn’t explain what he means by that. However, see תוספות in ממעכן  כתובות דף ס ד"ה  who explains that we only say מראית עין אסור אפילו בחדרי חדרים by an איסור דאורייתא. Therefore, since the case צינור ועל בו קשקשים is talking about doing something כלאחר יד, it is allowed since it’s a איסור דרבנן. Since תוספות says to compare it to our גמרא, he must be saying that since חול המועד is only an איסור דרבנן, there is no issue of מראית עין אפילו בחדרי חדרים.

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