A Tax-Free Meal
‘A Town Whose Torah Scroll Was Stolen…’
(Bava Basra 43a)
Our daf cites a baraitha teaching that if a city’s communal Sefer Torah was stolen, people of that city cannot judge or testify about it since it affects them. In order for a community member to testify regarding the Sefer Torah, he would theoretically be required to relinquish his share in the mitzvah of the reading of that Sefer Torah. The Gemara stresses that we do not say that one can forfeit his share in it and judge the case. The Gemara therefore resolves that regarding a Sefer Torah the law is different, for everyone (who will remain in the city) is obligated in its reading.
A Group Effort
A Jewish community in Lithuania used to collect a welfare tax on the sale of meat unless the meat was bought for a meal celebrating a mitzvah (a seudas mitzvah). A group of friends decided to fund the writing of a Sefer Torah to be owned jointly, and planned a meal to honor the start of the project. The tax collectors, though, demanded their share, claiming that such a meal was not a seudas mitzvah. Rabbi Yitzchak Elchonon Spektor was asked to rule on the case (Be’er Yitzchak, Yoreh Deah 19) and explained that we must first determine if a group writing a Sefer Torah observes a mitzvah, or if the mitzvah is valid only when entirely undertaken by an individual (see Pischei Teshuvah Yoreh Deah 270; Hagahos Rabbi Akiva Eiger, ibid.; Or Sameach Hilchos Sefer Torah 7; etc.).
Rabbi Spektor at first opined that our sugya shows that such a group effort is not considered a mitzvah. Our Gemara tells of a person wanting to testify against someone suspected of stealing a Sefer Torah from a local synagogue and suggests he declare in writing that he withdraw all his rights from the Sefer Torah. Only then would he be considered impartial and able to testify. If, though, his participation in purchasing the Sefer Torah was a mitzvah, how can we suggest he relinquish his rights? We might offer that the mitzvah, apparently, is only fulfilled by an individual owning the entire Sefer Torah (Beis Efrayim, Yoreh Deah 63). Rabbi Spektor, however, refutes this proof: If the congregant will not testify regarding the theft and thus retrieve the Sefer Torah, the entire community, including the witness, will be placed in an impossible situation where they will never get to fulfill the mitzvah, since as long as the Sefer Torah is held by the thief its owner has no mitzvah. In this unusual situation, the witness should preferably relinquish his share in the mitzvah for the sake of the community.
A Seudas Mitzvah?
At any rate, Rabbi Spektor ultimately defines a joint purchase of a Sefer Torah as a mitzvah. The question remained, however, whether to consider the meal, honoring the start of its writing, a seudas mitzvah. It would seem that such is not the case, for at that time, the Sefer Torah is, after all, far from written and unable to render the mitzvah of its reading.
An Engagement Party A Seudas Mitzvah?
Rabbi Spektor concluded that a repast honoring the start of a mitzvah is a seudas mitzvah just as, after all, an engagement party, in preparation for the mitzvah of marrying and begetting children, has always been so regarded. He consequently banned the meat tax sought on the new Sefer Torah project.
