Resources for Moed Katan 9

Daf A Week

Rabbi Yitzchok Gutterman

  1. The גמרא on the previous דף said that one cannot get married on חול המועד since אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה. The גמרא on our דף brings the source as the story of שלמה המלך who did the seven days of משתה for the חנוכת בית המקדש prior to the seven days of סוכות. The ירושלמיhere in הלכה ז (brought by תוספות here in ד"ה לפי) brings the source from the חומש where יעקב אבינו waited seven days after marrying לאה to marry רחל so as not to mix the שמחות The question is why the בבלי didn’t want to use a source from the חומש and instead used a source from נביא? In fact, the רמב"ם in פּרק י’ הל' י"ד quotes the פּסוק from חומש! (The רמב"ם often follows the ירושלמי). See the שו"ת חתם סופר in אה"ע ח"ב ס' קכ"ה who says the reason the בבלי didn’t bring it is that we can’t learn anything from before מתן תורה. The issue with that answer is that the ירושלמי agrees with the concept of אין למידין מקודם מתן תורה as well, as the ירושלמי says in another place that we can’t learn אבילות שבעה ימים from יוסף since it was before מתן תורה. In answer to that, see the מראה פּניםthere in the ירושלמי who explains that the ירושלמי holds that we can learn from before מתן תורה if it’s something that is logical like not mixing שמחות. In fact, he explains that this is exactly why תוספות felt the need to mention that “mixing two שמחות is like doing מצוות חבילות חבילות”, because in order to learn from קודם מתן תורה it needs to be something logical.  However, having אבילות seven days and not four is not something we could know without the Torah so we can’t learn that from before מתן תורה. Other אחרונים say this as well להלכה.
  2. As mentioned, תוספות says the reason we say אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה is because אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות. See the אגרות משהin או"ח ח"א סימן קפּ"ט who asks that this does not fit the typical explanation of אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות. The concept of אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות means, as רש"י explains in סוטה דף ח, that if you do a bunch of מצוות with one item, it looks like מצוות are difficult for you and you are trying to get rid of it quick. That reasoning does not really apply to שמחות. Nobody thinks you consider שמחות  a burden to get rid of. However, he explains that  even though the main idea of אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות is that it is נראה כמשאוי, there is also a part of it that is because your heart should be focused on one מצוה at a time, which can be proven from ברכות דף מ"ט where the גמרא says you can’t end a ברכה with two שבחות because אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות. In that case the other option is to not mention the second שבח at all, so it can’t be that the issue is that it looks like you are trying to get rid of the מצוה, because the alternative is to do even less. It must be that a part of the concept of אין עושים מצוות חבילות חבילות is also to stay focused on one thing at a time.
  3. The גמרא says that if a person is faced with doing a big מצוה or doing a smaller מצוה, then they should do the bigger מצוה unless the smaller one is א"א לעשות ע"י אחרים. There is a תשובת הרדב"זin ח"ד סי' י"ג who says that if a person is in jail and is told he can get out for one day, he should choose to get out immediately to do the מצוות he can do today (such as wearing tefillin) and not wait for Pesach or Yom Kippur where he could do bigger מצוות. The reason is that since you are מחויב now on the smaller מצוה, you can’t push it off for a bigger מצוה The חכם צבי in סימן ק"ו asks why this should be true since we find that we push off saying קידוש לבנה until מוצ"ש to do it in a more מהודר way, so why not push off the release from jail to when he could do a bigger מצוה? He answers that when dealing with one מצוה, then you can push it off to do it later to do it in a more מהודר way. However, when doing two מצוות, then one must choose the מצוה that appears in front of him now. He says our גמרא is a clear proof to the רדב"ז, since our גמרא says that when you have a מצוה שא"א לעשות ע"י אחרים, you are not allowed to think about which מצוה is bigger, but rather must just do the one that you are מחויב in now.

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