New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) Imagine a shul called Kehilas Machzikei HaDas. One day its members decide to rename it Kehilas Machzikei Chatzi HaDas. Then, to live up to the new name, they decide that when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, they will blow the shofar anyway.

This is, boruch Hashem, a fictitious scenario. And let there be no ambiguity about it: blowing the shofar on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah is forbidden nowadays. It is forbidden by the Mishnah, by the Gemara, by the Rambam, by the Shulchan Aruch, and by the unbroken practice of every Jewish community for well over a thousand years. Whoever does so is not upholding half of the religion. He is undermining Torah Judaism itself, because he is rejecting the authority of Chazal on which the observance of the entire Torah rests.

But it raises a very real and very deep question. What exactly happens in halacha when someone blows a shofar on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah? Has he perhaps fulfilled the Torah’s mitzvah of shofar and simultaneously broken a dtrict Rabbinic prohibition along the way?

Or has he accomplished nothing at all? And what does the answer tell us about the power Chazal have over the mitzvos of the Torah?

Part One: What the Torah Says, and What Chazal Did

The Torah Never Forbade It

The Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah 29b teaches that when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, the shofar was blown in the Beis HaMikdash but not anywhere else. The Gemara first tries to find a Torah source, suggesting that “a remembrance of teruah” (zichron teruah) refers to a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah and “a day of teruah for you” (yom teruah yihyeh lachem) to a weekday one. It rejects this: blowing a shofar is a skill (a chochmah), not a forbidden labor (a melachah), so the Torah has no reason to cancel it. The Gemara concludes: “According to Torah law, it is fully permitted. It was the Rabbis who decreed against it, in accordance with the reasoning of Rabbah.”

The Decree of Rabbah

Rabbah explained the concern. Everyone is obligated to blow, but not everyone knows how. A person might carry his shofar to an expert to learn, and in doing so carry it four amos in a public domain. To prevent that, Chazal forbade blowing on Shabbos altogether. The same reasoning, the Gemara adds, applies to lulav on the first day of Sukkos and to Megillah on Purim.

Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai and the Beis Din

The same Mishnah records that after the destruction, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai enacted that the shofar is blown on Shabbos wherever a beis din sits. The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 29b) tells how, when Rosh Hashanah fell on Shabbos and the towns gathered in Yavneh, the sons of Beseira wanted to debate the matter first, and Rabban Yochanan said, “Let us blow, and afterward we will discuss it.” Once they had blown, he told them that “the horn has already been heard in Yavneh,” and one does not raise objections after the deed is done. Which beis din qualifies is disputed among the Rishonim. The Rambam (Hilchos Shofar 2:9) requires a fixed beis din, ordained in the Land of Israel, that sanctified the month; the Rif holds that any beis din of three suffices.

The Yerushalmi’s Different Reason

Rabbah’s concern about carrying appears nowhere in the Talmud Yerushalmi, not for shofar, lulav, or Megillah (the Yerushalmi gives other reasons; see Yerushalmi Megillah 3:4 and Sukkah 3:11). The Yerushalmi in Rosh Hashanah 4:1 first brings the same zichron teruah derashah as the Bavli, and then a second one in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: “And you shall offer” means in the place where the offerings are brought. The shofar is blown on Shabbos in the Temple because the blowing is tied to the offerings, and because there the date is known with certainty. The Meiri (Rosh Hashanah 30a) draws the conclusion: “In the Talmud of the West they explained that the main obligation from the Torah does not apply outside the Temple.” Philo (On the Special Laws 188) likewise describes the shofar being blown in the Temple over the offerings. On this reading, blowing throughout the country is an extension of the Temple blowing, established for all generations as a remembrance, and it was never set to push aside Shabbos. There was even a tradition in the Land of Israel of taking the lulav on a Shabbos first day of Sukkos (Yerushalmi Eruvin 3:8; Sefer HaChilukim 51), and a piyut published by Prof. Ezra Fleischer (Tarbiz 54) shows the shofar still blown before the heads of the court in the Land of Israel on Shabbos long after the destruction, with the shofar tied to a pillar so that it could not be carried.

The Rif appears to have combined the two Talmuds: it is the doubt about the date together with Rabbah’s concern that sets the mitzvah aside, which is why a beis din that knows the date may blow (see Rif, Megillah 2b, and the Netziv, Ha’amek She’eilah 67). The Ba’al HaMaor disagrees and holds that Rabbah’s decree stands on its own. This matters for what follows, because the two Talmuds imply different answers to the next question.

So far this is well known. The interesting part begins with the next question.

Part Two: Uprooted or Only Suspended?

The Central Question

When Chazal forbade the shofar on Shabbos, what did they do to the mitzvah? Either they uprooted it, so that on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah there is no mitzvah of shofar at all and one who blows has fulfilled nothing; or they left the mitzvah standing, placed a prohibition on the act, and canceled the obligation, so that one who blows has fulfilled the Torah’s mitzvah while violating a Rabbinic prohibition.

The question applies equally to lulav on a Shabbos first day of Sukkos. It does not apply to Megillah, which is itself only Rabbinic; the same Sages who created it canceled it for Shabbos, so one who reads it on Shabbos has certainly fulfilled nothing.

Notice how the two Talmuds pull in different directions here. According to the Yerushalmi as the Meiri reads it, the full Torah mitzvah lives in the Temple, and blowing in the country is a later extension that was never set for Shabbos. On that view there is little to uproot: outside the Temple, a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah simply was never a day of blowing. According to Rabbah in the Bavli, the Torah mitzvah applies everywhere and on Shabbos, and Chazal blocked it for an outside reason. Only on that view does the question of uprooting versus suspending really bite.

The First View: The Mitzvah Is Still There

Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in Drush V’Chiddush (Maarachah 6), seems to write that an adult who blows on Shabbos has fulfilled the mitzvah, because the time of the mitzvah applies on Shabbos as well; he has only transgressed a shevus. This is why the Gemara says we do not stop children from blowing on Shabbos: it is chinuch in a real mitzvah. The Avnei Nezer, Yoreh Deah 141, takes the same position.

The reason lies in the limits of Rabbinic power. Chazal can uproot a Torah law only passively, through “sit and do nothing” (shev v’al ta’aseh). Rashi in Berachos 20a explains that Chazal set aside Torah matters only where the person does not actively uproot anything with his hands but simply sits in his place. Declaring the mitzvah of shofar null and void on Shabbos would be an active uprooting, beyond their power. The mitzvah therefore remains in place; Chazal, to build a protective fence, permitted a person to sit idle and not perform it.

The Second View: Nothing Has Been Fulfilled

The Chelkas Yoav, in Kava D’Kashyasa, Question 99, was astonished by Rabbi Akiva Eiger (whom he cites as Maarachah 8). It is very surprising, he writes, that a genius like him should say such a thing, given Tosafos and the Rash in Sukkah, who write that wherever a mitzvah is invalid by Rabbinic law, the person has not fulfilled it even on a Torah level.

He refers to Tosafos in Sukkah 3a. The Mishnah discusses one who sits with his head and most of his body in the sukkah but with his table in the house. Beis Shammai tell Beis Hillel, “If you did this, you have never fulfilled the mitzvah of sukkah in your life,” and Tosafos explain that this means he has not fulfilled it even on a Torah level. A Rabbinic requirement, the location of the table, appears to strip away Torah-level fulfillment. If Chazal can do that with sukkah, the Chelkas Yoav argues, they can do it with shofar.

A Proof from the Rambam

Surprisingly, the Acharonim did not cite the Rambam in Hilchos Shegagos. In 12:8 the Rambam rules that one who performs a mitzvah and, in doing so, unintentionally commits a kares-level sin is exempt from a sin-offering, “because he acted with permission.” In 12:10 he gives the example of one who carries the lulav out on a Shabbos first day of Sukkos, in order to fulfill his obligation, and unintentionally carries it four amos in a public domain: he is exempt.

The Gemara records a dispute whether this exemption requires that a mitzvah actually be accomplished. The Rambam, as 12:8 shows, requires it, and yet he exempts the man who carried the lulav on Shabbos. He must therefore consider him to have accomplished a mitzvah, which supports Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Avnei Nezer. It is possible, however, that the Rambam chose the case only as an example and was describing the era before the decree. This requires further study.

Part Three: A Wrong Turn Worth Avoiding

The Pri HaAretz and “If He Did It, Is It Effective?”

The responsa Pri HaAretz, Siman 10, tied the question to the dispute between Abaye and Rava in Temurah 4b: when the Torah says “do not do this” and a person does it anyway, is the act effective (i avid mehani) or treated as though it never happened (i avid lo mehani)? Since the shofar prohibition is only Rabbinic, the Pri HaAretz reasoned, the act is effective; the person can no longer recite Shehecheyanu on the second day, but receives makas mardus for violating a Rabbinic prohibition.

Why That Principle Does Not Apply Here

As explained at length in Minchas Asher on Bava Kamma, Siman 57, the rule of “i avid lo mehani” was stated only for acts that create a legal status (a chalos): a kinyan, separating terumah from bad produce on behalf of good, shinui koneh in a stolen object, and the other cases in Temurah. It was never applied to the fulfillment of mitzvos. Temurah brings many sugyos, and not one involves a mitzvah performed through a sin, such as a stolen lulav. For mitzvos, Chazal used a different heading entirely: “a mitzvah that comes about through a sin” (mitzvah haba’ah b’aveirah). (Tosafos there do raise cases of validity, such as slaughtering the Pesach while owning chametz or cutting the ear of a firstborn, but those concern whether an act is valid, not whether a mitzvah was fulfilled.) The shofar question must therefore be answered on its own terms.

Part Four: Answering the Chelkas Yoav

A Problem Nobody Could Explain

The Tosafos in Sukkah is itself a puzzle. The Acharonim could not explain what power Chazal have to declare a Torah mitzvah unfulfilled. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, in Chochmas Shlomo on Orach Chaim 634:4, wrote that the matter requires study, both regarding the Shulchan Aruch, which rules this way, and regarding Tosafos themselves. The Dvar Avraham cites one of the great authorities who explained Tosafos as a case of mitzvah haba’ah b’aveirah; but the Rishonim already disagree whether that rule applies to a Rabbinic sin (see Sdei Chemed, Maareches Mem, Klal 77, Os 7, and Oneg Yom Tov, Siman 9).

There are several ways to answer the Chelkas Yoav, each showing that the sukkah case differs from ours.

Answer One: The Basis of the Power, and Its Limits

If Chazal can declare a Torah mitzvah unfulfilled, the basis must be that “the matter was handed over to Chazal” (nimsar hadavar l’chachamim), discussed in Minchas Asher on Devarim, Siman 27: Hashem handed His Torah to its guardians and, in a sense, made His mitzvos depend on their will. But as explained in Minchas Asher on Pesachim, Siman 84, this applies only where Chazal built a fence around a Torah law to keep a person from sin. In the sukkah case, if a person who followed his table into the house could still fulfill the Torah mitzvah, the fence would accomplish nothing; so there Chazal had to declare the mitzvah unfulfilled. Where Chazal enacted something to perfect a person’s service of Hashem, this principle was never introduced. (The Pri Megadim, Eshel Avraham 271:1, cites the Rosh to suggest that one who did not make Kiddush over wine or bread has not fulfilled Kiddush even on a Torah level, and the Minchas Chinuch says the same. Minchas Asher rejects both.)

Answer Two: Three Kinds of Rabbinic Law

Rabbinic law falls into three categories. Decrees (gezeiros) are fences around Torah law, such as shevusim and sheniyos l’arayos. Mitzvos are new obligations, such as Chanukah lights and Megillah, together with the fixed wording of Birkas HaMazon, the blessings, and the prayers. Enactments (takanos) govern civil and family life: partners, buyers, returning lost objects, the kesubah. Tosafos’ statement belongs only to the first category. The Gemara itself uses two different verses: in Yevamos 21a, sheniyos are derived from “You shall guard My charge,” meaning “make a safeguard for My charge”; but for Chanukah lights, Shabbos 23a brings “Do not turn aside from the word that they tell you.” These are not the same kind of law.

Answer Three: Not All Decrees Are Alike

Even among decrees, “you have only what was specifically introduced” (ein lecha bo ela chiddusho), and Tosafos write that one decree may not be compared to another. With sukkah, the worry that a person would follow his table into the house was likely, so Chazal canceled the mitzvah completely. With shofar and lulav, the worry of carrying four amos in a public domain is remote.

Answer Four: A Fixed Form Versus a Time Limit

Where Chazal fixed the form of a mitzvah, such as how one sits in a sukkah or Kiddush over wine, deviating from that form may leave the mitzvah lacking even on a Torah level. With shofar on Shabbos, Chazal touched only the time, not the form, and a time limit may create no flaw in the Torah-level fulfillment.

Answer Five: Tosafos May Not Mean What They Seem to Mean

There is also a simpler reading. When Chazal forbade sitting with one’s table in the house, did they fold the prohibition into the mitzvah of sukkah itself, or merely place a general prohibition on the person? Tosafos are saying the former: on a Rabbinic level the mitzvah is unfulfilled, not merely that a prohibition was broken. It never occurred to Tosafos to say the Torah-level mitzvah has disappeared. And in any event, the Ritva in Sukkah, the Ran on Sukkah 27, and the Ran on Pesachim 115 all state that such a person did not fulfill sukkah in the proper manner but has nonetheless fulfilled a mitzvah and discharged his obligation.

Part Five: The Twilight Question, and the Real Mechanism

The Chelkas Yoav’s Challenge from Bein Hashmashos

The Chelkas Yoav raised a second difficulty. Chazal did not extend shevusim to twilight (bein hashmashos). If the mitzvah is still alive and only the act is forbidden, a person should be obligated to blow at twilight as Shabbos ends. Since no one holds that, Chazal must have canceled the mitzvah.

One could answer that this shevus is different, since a person might set out for the expert while it is still day. On the other hand, we do not follow the reasoning behind a decree (lo azlinan basar ta’ama). The same tension appears in the two answers of Tosafos in Megillah 4b on the shofar blast at the close of Yom Kippur: the first answer, that work before Havdalah is only Rabbinically forbidden, implies no concern about carrying while it is still day; the second, that only a single blast is needed, implies there is.

The Answer: Chazal Did Not Only Forbid; They Exempted

Here the real mechanism comes into view. Even if Chazal did not uproot the Torah mitzvah, they did more than forbid the act. They exempted the person from performing it. “Sit and do nothing” means not only that Chazal can issue a prohibition, but that they can release a person from a mitzvah altogether.

Two examples show this. Megillah: there is no prohibition against reading Megillas Esther on Shabbos, any more than Rus, Koheles, or Tehillim. Yet Chazal “canceled” Megillah on Shabbos. They must have exempted the person from the mitzvah, with no prohibition. (The Pri Chadash, Siman 688, holds that a Megillah may not be handled on Shabbos because it may not be read, but most Acharonim disagree; see Mishnah Berurah 688:18.) Megillah is Rabbinic, but according to the view that the words of the Prophets are like the words of the Torah, this is Chazal exempting a person from a mitzvah of the Prophets. The evening Shema: Chazal required it before midnight, yet there is obviously no prohibition against saying Shema after midnight. They exempted him, even though they cannot uproot the mitzvah itself.

This resolves the twilight question: beyond the shevus, Chazal removed the mitzvah, so there is nothing to fulfill at twilight. And it must be right for another reason. If only the act were forbidden, one able to blow b’shinui would be obligated to do so, as a shevus d’shevus for a mitzvah; and since there is no true reshus harabim nowadays, blowing would always be a shevus d’shevus for a mitzvah. No one says any of this. The enactment included an exemption from shofar and lulav, exactly as with Megillah.

Why the Exemption Is Not a Loss

Later authorities give this exemption a positive meaning. The Meshech Chochmah (Vayikra 23:24) writes that not blowing on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah is itself “a tremendous spiritual akeidah,” which brings favor just as the remembrance of the shofar does. The Rokeach (Sefer HaRokeach 201) gives two reasons for not blowing: “because of Rabbah’s decree, and also because Shabbos is a sign, and Israel are guarded.” Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen (Pri Tzadik, Rosh Hashanah) explains that on Shabbos a person already has an inner awe; the Shem MiShmuel (Nitzavim) writes that the shofar is meant to reach the level of Malchus, and on Shabbos we are already there. Rabbi Re’em HaKohen (Shiurim L’Maseches Shabbos, pp. 157–159) reads Rabbah’s own reason in this light: Shabbos is “let no man go out from his place,” a day for sitting at home and listening to one’s inner voice rather than going out to an expert to learn the blasts. The Beis HaLevi (vol. 2, Derush 15) explains the Gemara’s “with what? with the shofar” as meaning that on Rosh Hashanah the crowning comes not through the organs of speech but from the depths of the heart.

There is also a communal dimension. The Ritva (Rosh Hashanah 34a) explains that the seated blasts (tekios d’meyushav) fulfill the mitzvah of the day, while the blasts during the chazzan’s repetition of Mussaf come “to lift the prayer up with a teruah,” parallel to the blowing over the offerings in the Temple; Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch (Moadim U’Zmanim 1:7) adds that these were set specifically in “the prayer of the community,” the chazzan’s repetition, which replaces the communal offering. The communal blowing belonged to the Temple, and after the destruction to the place where a beis din sits. The individual’s blowing was never commanded for Shabbos, and, on these views, is not missed: the purpose of the day is achieved by Shabbos itself. This fits the exemption model precisely. Chazal did not leave a live obligation hanging with only the act forbidden; they released the individual from the mitzvah, and the day supplies what the sound would have.

Part Six: The Blessing of Shehecheyanu

A Question the Poskim Raised

The Chochmas Shlomo on Siman 588 cites the Eshel Avraham, who cites a responsum uncertain about one who transgressed, blew on Shabbos, and recited the blessing: must he recite Shehecheyanu on the second day, according to those who hold that one who recited it on the first day does not repeat it? The Pri HaAretz raised the same doubt.

Why the Blessing Does Not Depend on the Main Question

This question stands apart from the inquiry. Shehecheyanu is Rabbinic, and since Chazal forbade fulfilling shofar on Shabbos, a blessing over it runs against their will. Even according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, there is no room to bless over a mitzvah whose performance is Rabbinically forbidden; a blessing belongs only where one is obligated or permitted to act. “They said it, and they said it” (heim amru v’heim amru). (Even if he did not bless, once he performed the mitzvah he apparently can no longer say Shehecheyanu, like one who ate a new fruit without the blessing. So the Eshel Avraham’s real doubt concerns the second day.)

Why the Blessing Might Not Be in Vain After All

There is, however, another consideration. The Gemara in Sukkah 46 and Shulchan Aruch 641:1 rule that one who builds a sukkah recites Shehecheyanu, and the same applies to binding the lulav (651; Mishnah Berurah 651:29). Perhaps one who blesses on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah is no worse than one who blesses at the binding of the lulav; blessing at the mitzvah is preferable, but discharging the obligation is enough to keep the blessing from being in vain.

Two Rulings of the Mishnah Berurah

The Mishnah Berurah seems to say two things. In 651:56 he rules that one who blessed over a lulav and then found the hadas or aravah missing, invalid, or upside down must repeat both blessings, since the blessing was meant for the taking and the mitzvah was not fulfilled. But in 639:48 he rules that one who made Kiddush in the sukkah and then noticed the shutters over the s’chach were closed should eat another k’zayis and say Leisheiv BaSukkah, but not repeat Kiddush or Shehecheyanu, because the Shehecheyanu said when building the sukkah is effective.

The resolution is that everything depends on the object of the mitzvah (the chefzta d’mitzvah). A covered sukkah has no defect in itself, which is why opening the roof raises no problem of ta’aseh v’lo min ha’asui. A lulav with an invalid species is defective in itself, and according to the view that a lulav requires binding, must be bound again; there the blessing is in vain because there is no mitzvah and no object of a mitzvah. The Shabbos shofar has no defect in itself, but by Chazal’s enactment there is no mitzvah that day, which may be worse. Shulchan Aruch 662:2 adds that no Shehecheyanu is said on the second day of Sukkos, and the Mishnah Berurah explains that even if the first day was a weekday, the person is no worse than one who blessed at the building of the sukkah. Perhaps the same applies here, or perhaps the second day differs because it carries a Rabbinic mitzvah.

So there is room to doubt whether the person must repeat Shehecheyanu. But the root of the doubt is not whether he fulfilled the Torah mitzvah. It is whether the blessing was in vain, or whether he is no worse than one who blessed over the preparation of the mitzvah.

Part Seven: Those Who Blew Anyway

Over the centuries a small number of individuals did blow on Shabbos, and it is worth seeing exactly what they did and how it was received, because it is the opposite of the fictitious shul.

The Ritva (Rosh Hashanah 29b) records that the Rif’s students testified that he blew the shofar in his own beis din on Shabbos, relying on his ruling that a beis din of three suffices and on the fact that nowadays the date is known. The Ritva immediately adds: “But we have not found anyone who acts as he did in any Jewish community.” Rabbeinu Manoach (Hilchos Shofar 2:9) mentions scholars from Damascus who reported seeing the shofar blown on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah; that report, too, is recorded as a curiosity, not a precedent.

The most famous case is Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger of Jerusalem. In 1881 he published a pamphlet arguing for blowing on Shabbos before a beis din, gathered several rabbis and scholars, and prepared to blow on Rosh Hashanah 5642. Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tikochinsky (Ir HaKodesh V’HaMikdash) records what happened: when erev Rosh Hashanah arrived, most of them “slipped away and backed out, because they were afraid to do such a thing against most of our rabbis, the halachic authorities, and against the custom of Israel.” A few individuals remained, and he blew “in a quiet manner and a quiet place.” He never did it again. Rabbi Shmuel Salant, the rav of Jerusalem, did not support him, though he did not stop people from going to hear it. The Aderes, near the end of his life in 1904, grieved that he might never again fulfill the Torah mitzvah of shofar, and said that had Rabbi Schlesinger still been alive he would have gone to hear him through the wall of an adjoining room. (On the episode see Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, Moadim B’Halachah, on Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbos.)

Every one of these cases shares three features. The blowing was before a beis din, on the strength of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai’s enactment. It rested on a serious halachic argument about the certainty of the date. And it was done quietly, by individuals, without any attempt to change public practice, and was not accepted by the community. Even so, the halachic consensus rejected it. The Ritva’s “we have not found anyone who acts as he did” and the Jerusalem rabbis who backed out on erev Rosh Hashanah are the verdict of Klal Yisrael.

Part Eight: Back to the Shul

Return now to Kehilas Machzikei Chatzi HaDas. When its members blow the shofar on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah, what have they done?

They have certainly violated a Rabbinic prohibition, the shevus decreed by Rabbah. According to Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Avnei Nezer, they have also fulfilled the Torah mitzvah of shofar, and possibly the Rambam in Hilchos Shegagos agrees. According to the Chelkas Yoav, they have fulfilled nothing at all, though that position rests on a Tosafos in Sukkah that can be answered in at least five ways and that the Ritva and the Ran do not share.

But both views agree on the mechanism that matters most. Chazal did not merely forbid the act. Through their power of “sit and do nothing,” they exempted every Jew from the mitzvah of shofar on that day, just as they exempted him from Megillah on Shabbos and from the evening Shema after midnight. The obligation is simply gone. That is why no one is required to blow at twilight, or b’shinui, or on the strength of there being no true public domain today.

None of that applies to Kehilas Machzikei Chatzi HaDas. Its members would be blowing in an ordinary shul, before no beis din, with no halachic argument, and in open defiance of the custom of Israel. That is not a minority opinion. It is not an opinion at all.

One question remains open. Is this only an exemption, so that one who blows anyway still earns reward as eino metzuveh v’oseh? Or can Chazal declare that there is no service of Hashem here at all, even though, according to the Ran and the Ritva, they cannot say that no object of a mitzvah exists? What is certain is this. Blowing the shofar on a Shabbos Rosh Hashanah is forbidden today, without exception, in every community in the world. The members of the fictitious shul would not be keeping half of the religion; there is no such thing. A Jew who sets aside a decree of Chazal because he prefers the Torah mitzvah it protects has rejected the very system through which the Torah reaches him. He is not more religious than his neighbors who sit in silence on that Shabbos. He has stepped outside Torah Judaism altogether.

The author can be reached at [email protected]