Voluntary Mitzva Performance

May a woman perform mitzvot voluntarily? Under what circumstances?

Our sages debate the permissibility of women’s voluntary mitzva performance in the context of their discussion of semicha, leaning on a sacrifice.¹

At the time of the Beit Ha-mikdash, a person bringing a sacrifice would lean his hands on the animal’s head just before it was slaughtered. This created a personal, physical connection between the person bringing the sacrifice and the sacrificial animal.

Women are exempt from semicha based on a midrashic understanding of the above-cited verses. The Talmud cites the midrash, which also debates whether women may perform semicha voluntarily.²

The midrash halacha deduces from the use of the term “benei Yisrael” that benot Yisrael, daughters of Israel, i.e. women, are not fully included in the command. According to Rabbi Yehuda, women may not lean on a sacrifice at all. Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon agree that women are not obligated in semicha, but maintain that women may lean voluntarily. (We explore their viewpoint below.)

Semicha is a positive commandment that is not time-bound.⁴ However, the Talmud links the debate over semicha to the discussion of women’s blowing shofar – a positive, time-bound commandment from which women are exempt – making the ruling on semicha relevant to positive time-bound commandments.⁵

Rabbi Yehuda’s View

Rashi and Tosafot present two very different explanations of Rabbi Yehuda’s view:

I. Rashi’s Explanation: Rashi explains that Rabbi Yehuda prohibits women from leaning on a sacrifice or blowing shofar because he thinks that a woman who performs these acts violates the prohibition of “bal tosif,” adding to the commandments.⁶

Typically, bal tosif refers to adding quantitatively to a mitzva, for example, by sitting in the sukka for an additional day or attaching an extra compartment to tefillin. However, Rashi suggests here that bal tosif might also refer to performing an act that is not obligatory, while treating it as if it is.

II. Tosafot’s Explanation: Tosafot present a different understanding of Rabbi Yehuda’s position. On their reading, Rabbi Yehuda usually permits women to perform mitzvot voluntarily, even when exempted. He prohibits women’s leaning on sacrifices and blowing the shofar for other reasons.

Tosafot explain that a person who leans on a sanctified animal when not required to do so appears to be doing avoda she-bekodeshim, labor with sanctified animals. Avoda she-bekodeshim is prohibited on a Torah level, and appearing to do it is rabbinically prohibited. Rabbi Yehuda would similarly prohibit women from blowing shofar, because there is a rabbinic-level prohibition on blowing shofar on a festival when not commanded.⁷

According to Tosafot, unless there is a specific reason to prohibit a woman’s voluntarily performing a particular mitzva, Rabbi Yehuda permits it.⁸ That does not tell us whether or not Rabbi Yehuda sees any value in the act.

Rabbi Yosei’s and Rabbi Shimon’s View

The halachic consensus is to follow Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon’s position over Rabbi Yehuda’s. Their position also appears in a parallel midrash halacha, alongside a related anecdote:⁹

Apparently, women in the Temple wanted to perform semicha, even though they were exempt from it. Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon maintain that women’s gratification, nachat ru’ach shel nashim, has independent value. If we assume that they, too, might have been concerned about the appearance of performing avodah shebekodeshim when leaning on animals voluntarily, we can learn here that nachat ru’ach shel nashim supersedes that rabbinic prohibition. On this view, Halacha takes women’s feelings into account.

What is the halachic meaning of voluntary performance?

As we have seen, Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Shimon permit a woman to perform semicha as a matter of reshut, permission. There are two main ways in which to understand reshut here (and in general).

I. The voluntary act has little or no objective halachic value.¹⁰ Here, we would say that a woman receives personal emotional satisfaction, but her action is not a direct fulfillment of God’s will.

II. The voluntary act has objective halachic value. There are two major elements to a mitzva: the command and the mitzva act. Although the command element of the mitzva cannot be recreated, the mitzva act still has meaning as a fulfillment of God’s will.This is sometimes called reshut de-mitzva.¹¹

Rav Yitzchak Ha-levi, one of Rashi’s teachers, characterizes a woman’s voluntary performance of mitzvot as ‘bringing herself into the yoke of the mitzva.’ This phrasing suggests that voluntary performance is a mitzva act. At the same time, he holds that the act is fully optional.

Rav Yitzchak thus calls a woman who undertakes voluntary performance a “mekayyemet mitzva,” one who fulfills a mitzva.

Ramban uses an even stronger formulation to describe a woman’s performance of positive time-bound mitzvot:

According to Ramban, a woman is commanded in the mitzva. It’s just that men receive the mitzva as an obligatory act to pursue, while women receive it as an optional act to fulfill.¹²

The view that a woman’s voluntary mitzva performance has halachic value, and may even itself be considered fulfillment of a mitzva, predominates.¹³ Ra’avya (Ashkenaz, 12th century) directly calls a woman’s voluntary mitzva performance a mitzva.¹⁴

How does voluntary performance compare to commanded performance?

In the Talmud, Rav Yosef discusses this question from a personal perspective.

At first, Rav Yosef thought that if, as a blind man, he were exempt from mitzvot, it would work to his advantage. Any initiative he took would be valued, while he would never be subject to punishment. From Rabbi Chanina, however, Rav Yosef learns that it is greater to perform mitzvot as a response to a command than to do it voluntarily. “Gadol ha-metzuveh ve-oseh mi-mi she-eino metzuveh ve’oseh.” “Greater is one who is commanded and does than one who is not commanded and does.”

Rabbi Chanina describes the commanded performer as “greater” than one not commanded, implying that the latter’s act still has worth. Rav Yosef expresses worth in terms of reward, where reward signifies the act’s halachic value. The reward for voluntary action is smaller, but there is still reward.

Why does one who is commanded receive greater reward? Voluntary performance is praiseworthy, for it indicates individual initiative in service of God. However, Ritva explains why performance of a mitzva when obligated is even more praiseworthy:

Ritva makes two points:

I. Tension We experience more tension when we must act out of obedience than when we freely choose to act. Surmounting that tension as faithful servants of God merits special reward.

II. Obedience Mitzva performance is first and foremost an act of obedience to God, a response to God’s call. One who is not commanded acts piously, but cannot receive reward for submission to God’s decree.

Can voluntary performance become anything like obligation?

Thirteenth century tosafist Rabbeinu Peretz, writes that in voluntary performance, women “bring themselves into the obligation:”¹⁵

What does this mean? Given that the Torah does not obligate women in these mitzvot, perhaps this phrase tells us only that women act as though obligated, and this commitment is noteworthy. But it may indicate that there are other mechanisms that can trigger a different, weaker form of obligation.

Binding Communal Custom

A community can take a practice upon itself, transforming that practice into custom. A custom can sometimes become so prevalent and entrenched that it takes on a sort of obligatory status.

For example, the Talmud concludes that the evening prayer of aravit (ma’ariv) is reshut (for men). But, since men have adopted this prayer as a longstanding practice, it becomes like an obligation:¹⁶

Are there any examples of women having a binding communal custom to perform positive time-bound commandments? There is a near universal custom for Jewish women to hear the shofar on Rosh Ha-shana, even though it is a positive time-bound commandment, and for communities to treat that practice like an obligation.

As early as the fourteenth century, Maharil notes the implications of this quasi-obligation for individual women and for the community as a whole:

Here, again, we see the language of “They bring themselves into the obligation.” Maharil adds that, when a community of women takes on a mitzva as a group, it is as if its members “obligate themselves.” Since this is not standard obligation, Maharil urges women to fulfill it in a way that respects communal needs.

Centuries later, Magen Avraham and Rabbi Akiva Eiger extend the idea of communal obligation to other mitzvot. Magen Avraham notes that, since women of his day count the omer, it has become like an obligation:¹⁷

His language is the same as that of the Rif referring to men and the evening prayer. Similarly, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, when discussing women’s observance of mitzvot, notes that “women have accepted it upon themselves.”

Note Rav Eiger’s positive terminology to describe voluntary performance. In his experience, women are “stringent,” “scrupulous” and “eager” to perform these mitzvot.

In practice, of the Torah-level time-bound mitzvot, only shofar has been taken on in full, and may be considered binding on women on a communal level. In some communities, we might add recitation of Shema and taking lulav.

Opposing view

Minchat Chinuch challenges the assertion that communal practice can obligate women in any way. He questions the comparison to the evening prayer, and denies any binding status to the act.

“All agree that [it] is not a mitzva at all.” Minchat Chinuch seems to reject the viewpoint of the sources we have seen that do recognize a mitzva element in voluntary mitzva performance.

Although many halachic authorities disagree with Minchat Chinuch here, his question reminds us of how far we have come: from Torah-level exemption, to arguably permissible voluntarism, to debating binding custom.

Personal Obligation

Another path to something like obligation is personal. An individual’s commitment to a certain practice can be binding as a form of neder, vow.¹⁸

For example, a man may fast on Mondays and Thursdays, or a woman may regularly take lulav. If he or she later decides not to continue the practice, she needs to be formally released from the neder before a beit din, hatarat nedarim. However, according to Rav Ovadya Yosef, no formal release would be necessary if circumstances beyond her control got in the way of her performing it.¹⁹

A woman’s personal, consistent commitment may give a dimension of obligation to her voluntary mitzva performance, like a binding custom. However, neither communal binding custom nor self-obligation is equivalent to regular mitzva obligation. A woman who has always been careful to hear shofar is still not obligated in shofar the way men are, from the Torah, and that difference has halachic consequences.

Should a woman make an effort to perform mitzvot from which she is exempt?

Surprisingly, a statement in the Yerushalmi seems to imply just the opposite:

The Yerushalmi appears to assert that voluntary mitzva performance by one exempted is pointless and to be discouraged.

Ramban²⁰ explains, however, that this principle is not at all what it at first seems:

When an action is not commanded for anyone, as for example sitting in the sukka on Pesach, performing it has no value. When someone invents a “mitzva,” he or she diverges from the Torah. That is the case in which one is called a hedyot.

This label does not apply when a person voluntarily performs a genuine mitzva from which she, personally, is exempt, especially if we view performance as reshut de-mitzva. Voluntary action in this case is a reflection of yearning for mitzvot, not the act of a simpleton.²¹

If we view voluntary mitzva performance as a reshut de-mitzva, then we should generally encourage it, as long as it does not conflict with other religious obligations or values.²² Rav Yisrael Ze’ev Gustman (Lithuania and Israel, 20th century) makes this case forcefully:

Let’s leave the last word to Rabbanit Chana Henkin, who values both fulfilling command and voluntarism. Rabbanit Henkin sees beauty in how a woman’s relationship with mitzvot lies at various times within each of these categories.²³