משנה: מקבלת אשה מיד בנה ומיד בעלה ומחזירתו למים בשבת. רבי יהודה אומר: בשבת מחזירין, ביום טוב מוסיפין, ובמועד מחליפין.
גמרא: פשיטא! מהו דתימא? הואיל ואישה לאו בת חיובא, היא אימא לא תקבל? קא משמע לן.
Mishnah: A woman may take [the lulav] from the hand of her son or from the hand of her husband and put it back in water on Shabbat. Rabbi Yehudah ruled: On Shabbat it may be put back [into the water in which it was previously kept], on a festival day [water] may be added, and on the intermediate days [of the festival water] may [also] be changed.[1]
Gemara: Is this not obvious? I might have said that, since a woman does not come under the obligation [of lulav], she may not take it. Therefore he informs us [that she may].
[1] See above Mishnah 5 (mSuk 3:15), for a complete discussion of this mishnah.
@General observations
The gemara clarifies the reason for the mishnah. One might erroneously think that since a woman is not obligated to fulfill the commandment of lulav she is forbidden to carry it on Shabbat (since she would thus be carrying an object that is useless for her). The gemara claims that, since this reasoning may sound logical, the mishnah informs us specifically that she may.
@Feminist observations
The structure “Is not this obvious? […] therefore he informs us” is characteristic of the later stratum of stamaic editing.[1] This information indicates that women participated in the ritual of the lulav, or that such participation was known in Jewish society in Babylonia during the late talmudic period.
[1] WEISS HALIVNI, Sources and Traditions, 230, n. 5 comments that the stama uses such a structure in order to add information.
@Bibliography
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HEZSER, CATHERINE, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, Oxford 2001.
ILAN, TAL, Massekhet Ta‘anit (FCBT II/9) Tübingen 2008.
ILAN, TAL, Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature, Leiden 1997.
RUBENSTEIN, JEFFREY L., The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods, Atlanta 1995.
VALLER, SHULAMIT, נשים בחברה היהודית בתקופת המשנה והתלמוד (Women in Jewish Society during the Period of the Mishnah and Talmud), Tel Aviv 2000.
WEISS HALIVNI, DAVID, מקורות ומסורות, ביאורים בתלמוד: סדר מועד (Sources and Traditions: Interpretations in the Talmud to Seder Mo’ed), Jerusalem 1975.