How did you decide?
Examples:
1) You are daavning in Shul, about to get up to the Shma when a person comes asking you for tzedaka.
Would you keep daavning, or would you give the man some tzedaka?
2) You are studying for school, when your parents asks you for help in schlepping his table home.
Would you tell your mom to wait, or would you run to help her?
3) You are going to visit your sick grandmother in the hospital, when your spouse calls you and asks you if you could pick up a gift for the kid's friend's birthday which is starting in 5 minutes!
Do you run to help your brother or do you continue on our way to the hospital?
Life is full of choices, not only between good and evil, but between good and better, and bad and worse! This conflict is exactly what the Sugyeh of "Osek Min Hamitzvah Patur Min Hamitzvah" is dealing with.
Let's begin!
(ד) הָעוֹשֶׂה סֻכָּתוֹ בֵּין הָאִילָנוֹת, וְהָאִילָנוֹת דְּפָנוֹת לָהּ, כְּשֵׁרָה. שְׁלוּחֵי מִצְוָה פְּטוּרִין מִן הַסֻּכָּה. חוֹלִין וּמְשַׁמְּשֵׁיהֶן פְּטוּרִין מִן הַסֻּכָּה. אוֹכְלִין וְשׁוֹתִין עֲרַאי חוּץ לַסֻּכָּה:
(4) If one constructs his sukkah amid the trees, and the trees form its walls, it is valid. Individuals sent as emissaries to perform a mitzvah are exempt from [the obligations pertaining to] the sukkah. Individuals who are sick, and those who attend to them, are exempt from the sukkah. One may eat or drink incidentally [but not as part of an established meal] outside of the sukkah.
2)Why is he exempt from fulfilling the Mitzvah of Sukkah?
3)Would we apply this principle to all Mitzvot-or is it Sukkah specific?
The Gemara asks: If the exemption is due to preoccupation, then even one who is preoccupied because his ship sank at sea should also be exempt. The Gemara reinforces its question: And if you say that in this case as well, when one’s ship sank at sea, one is exempt, why then did Rabbi Abba bar Zavda say that Rav said: A mourner is obligated in all the mitzvot mentioned in the Torah except for the mitzva to don phylacteries, from which a mourner is exempt, as the term splendor is stated with regard to phylacteries, as it is stated: “Make no mourning for the dead, bind your splendor upon yourself” (Ezekiel 24:17). It is inappropriate for a mourner to wrap himself in phylacteries, with regard to which, the term splendor was employed (Tosafot). If a mourner, who is clearly pained and preoccupied, is obligated to recite Shema, then certainly all others who are preoccupied, even one whose ship sank at sea, whose loss was merely monetary (Birkat Hashem), should be obligated. Why, then, is a groom exempted because of his preoccupation and one who lost his property is not?
Q) What potential problems could emerge if we said that anyone immersed in a Mitzvah is exempt from all other Mitzvot?