Resources for Moed Katan 14

Daf A Week

Rabbi Yitzchok Gutterman

  1. The משנה says that one cannot cut one’s hair on חול המועד. The reason is a גזרה שלא יכנס לרגל מנוול. See the טורin סימן תקל"א who quotes ר"ת as saying that if one did cut their hair before יו"ט, then one would be allowed to cut their hair on חול המועד as well. The טור and all the other Poskim disagree with the ר"ת. The main reason for their disagreement is that our משנה should have listed that scenario as an exception, and if it didn’t, it must be אסור. Furthermore, people who see the person with a clean-shaven head or face will not know that the person already got a haircut before יו"ט. If so, there should be מראית עין like the גמרא mentions by the person who lost an object and didn’t have time to get a haircut. See the נודע ביהודה in מהדורא קמא, או"ח סימן י"ג who defends ר"ת. According to him, ר"ת only meant to be מתיר for a פּועל שאין לו מה יאכל. The reason is that according to the נודע ביהודה, once חז"ל said that you shouldn’t shave, it means they decided to leave it a מלאכה. If you did shave before יו"ט, they could have removed the מלאכה for that person but didn’t feel it was necessary because there isn’t a great צורך if he just shaved. However, if the issue is only מלאכה and there is no קנס, then it is מותר for a פּועל שאין לו מה יאכל. However, the משנה wouldn’t have listed it since it’s אסור in any case other than a פּועל שאין לו מה יאכל. By contrast, someone who didn’t shave before יו"ט wouldn’t even be able to use a פּועל שאין לו מה יאכל since they expressly said they wanted to קנס

Related to the discussion above, there is an important חקירה in our סוגיא: when חז"ל said you couldn’t shave on חול המועד lest you come into the רגל מנוול, does that mean that מן התורה one can shave but there is a גזרה דרבנן prohibiting it, or do we say that because of the גזרת חז"ל, it goes back to being a full fledged מלאכה. Consequently, if you hold חול המועד is an איסור דאורייתא, then shaving on חול המועד would be an איסור דאורייתא. It sounds like from the נודע ביהודה mentioned above that he understood that because of חז"ל’s גזרה, shaving went back to having the status of a real מלאכה. However, see the פּרי מגדים in סימן תקל"א, משבצות זהב ס"ק ג who sounds like he thinks you would not get מכת מרדות since it is only a קנס.

  1. The גמרא says that the reason you can’t shave on חול המועד is the same reason that the אנשי משמר couldn’t shave during their משמר—we are afraid that they will not shave beforehand. The מאיריasks the seemingly obvious question: by the אנשי משמר, while they can,t shave most of the week, we allow them to shave on Thursday לכבוד שבת. If so, why don’t we allow the same היתר by חול המועד? He gives two answers: one is that by the אנשי משמר, they always start the same day of the week (מוצאי שבת) so it makes sense that five days later they would need to shave again, whereas חול המועד can sometimes start on a Thursday, so they couldn’t give that היתר. The other answer relates to the discussion above: he says that by the אנשי משמר, the only reason they can’t shave is a קנס. Conversely, by חול המועד, once חז"ל forbade it, it gets a דין of a real מלאכה which they were not going to change just for one day.

-------------------------

Click here to download maarei m’komos by Rabbi Asher Millman (in PDF)

Click here to download Shaklya v’Tarya Summary by Rabbi Yaakov Blumenfeld