?Are women allowed to learn Torah before saying the blessings over the Torah

Responsum from Rabbanit Rachel Wachtfogel

Question:

I learned that women say the blessings over the Torah – “who has made us holy through his commandments and has commanded us to engage in the study of the words of Torah” – because for them, the blessing is general and not individual: we are saying the blessing because God commanded the Jewish people as a whole to study Torah.

If this is the case, may women learn Torah before saying the blessings over the Torah in the morning? I have always been careful not to do so… If it is forbidden, why? What is the real reason that it is necessary for women to say the blessing over a commandment that was not given to them? In general, I feel like my understanding of this topic is lacking, and I would be happy if you could explain it!

Thank you in advance for your response!

Responsum:

Thank you for the opportunity to make things clear and understand why women say the blessings over the Torah. The answer to this question impacts the laws of women saying the blessings over the Torah, and whether or not women can learn Torah before saying these blessings.

In short: There are two opinions regarding how to categorize the blessings over the Torah. The first opinion is that these blessings fall under the category of blessings over commandments – blessings which are said before fulfilling a commandment, in this case the commandment to study Torah. The second opinion is that these blessings are blessings of praise to God for giving us the Torah. 

According to the first opinion, women are obligated to say these blessings because they are obligated to learn certain parts of the Torah.  According to the second opinion, they are obligated because women are part of the Jewish people who received the Torah. According to both of these opinions, both men and women should say these blessings before learning Torah each day, whether because we say the blessing over the commandment before fulfilling the commandment, or because we are praising God for the Torah that we are now going to learn.  Therefore, you are correct to make sure not to learn Torah before saying the blessings over the Torah, and you should continue to do so.

The in-depth response: The source for the blessings over the Torah is in Berakhot 21a: “Rabbi Yehuda said: …And from where is the commandment by Torah law to recite the blessing over the Torah before it is read, derived? As it is stated: ‘When I proclaim the Lord’s name, give glory to our God’ (Deuteronomy 32:3).”

The Maharsha explains: “’When I proclaim the Lord’s name’ is when I read the Torah, which is all names of God, because all of the Torah and its letters are names of God” (Hiddushe Aggadot on Brakhot 21a). Because Moses is reading the Torah, the people of Israel will praise God’s name: “Give glory to our God.”

You wrote in your question that you learned about the reason that women say the blessings over the Torah. We will now see that there are several explanations for why women are obligated in this commandment. In order to better understand this, we will look at two opinions regarding how to categorize the blessings over the Torah.

Opinion #1: The blessings over the Torah are blessings over commandments.

Maimonides does not include the blessings over the Torah in his Sefer Ha-Mitzvot (the Book of Commandments), and one may conclude from here that according to him, these blessings are not derived from the Torah, but, rather, are rabbinic blessings on fulfilling the commandment of Torah study. Maimonides teaches that before learning Torah, one needs to make a blessing on doing so, just like all other commandments, where a person makes the blessing on the commandment before fulfilling the commandment: “If one rises early to read the Torah, before he has recited the Shema, whether it is the Written or the Oral Law that he intends to study, he first washes his hands, recites three blessings, and then proceeds to his reading” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer, 7:11).

The Shulhan Arukh rules according to Maimonides: “One should not read biblical verses before saying the blessings over the Torah, even if one is saying them by way of supplication. Some say one does not have to be concerned about it, because one is only saying the verses as supplication. However, it is right to be concerned about it, in keeping with the first opinion” (Orah Hayyim Siman 46:9).

One can ask, based on this position, why do women need to say the blessings over the Torah, as Shulhan Arukh rules (Orah Hayyim Siman 47:14), if they are not commanded to study Torah, since we learn in Kiddushin 29b, that women are exempt from Torah study?

Women are indeed exempt from studying Torah in the way that men are obligated to study Torah – meaning, studying all topics of Torah, without measure. Women, however, are obligated in Torah study regarding the laws that are relevant to them. The Rema comments on the Shulhan Arukh’s statement that women are exempt from the commandment to study Torah: “Nevertheless, women are obligated to learn the laws that are relevant to women (Agur in the name of the Semag)” (Yoreh De’ah, Siman 246:6).

The Agur on which the Rema is based says that according to the Maharil (also known as the Mahari), in addition to the laws that are relevant to women, women are obligated to read the passages regarding the sacrifices, just as they are obligated to pray:

The Mahari writes that women say the blessings over the Torah even though they are not obligated to study Torah. Not only that – when the rabbis say: “Every person that teaches his daughter Torah, it is as if he taught her nonsense,” they are referring to Oral Torah, and not to the Written Torah, as Maimonides writes. Even though the language of the blessing is ‘to engage in the study of the words of Torah’ which sounds like the Oral Torah, nevertheless, we do not change the language of blessings. Furthermore, women say the blessings over reading the biblical passages regarding the sacrifices. Because prayer was established to take the place of sacrifices, and women are obligated in prayer, women are therefore also obligated to read the passages regarding the burnt offering and the other sacrifices. All the more so according to the Semag [they should say the blessings over the Torah], since he writes that women are obligated to study the laws that are relevant to them. (Sefer Ha-Agur, Tefillah 2)

We have seen that according to the Maharil, women say the blessings over the Torah because of their obligation to read the passages regarding the sacrifices, and according to the Semag, because of their obligation to study the laws that are relevant to them. The Agur and the Rema, following him, rule according to both of these positions.

The Hida limits the extent of women’s obligation to study Torah. According to him, it is good for women to learn about the laws that are relevant to them, but if they already know these laws (because they have received them as tradition), they do not have an obligation to study them:

One could say that when it is written, “they are obligated to study the laws of women,” it does not actually mean obligated, but rather that it is good and upright for them to study what is relevant to them; it is not a real obligation… But it is more correct to say that their obligation is not part of the obligation to study Torah, from which they are certainly exempt, but part of their obligation to know these laws – and if they already know them, there is no longer any obligation for them to learn, and this is easy to understand. (Barkhi Yosef, Orah Hayyim, Siman 47)

Even when a woman studies Oral Torah or laws that are not “relevant” to her, there is reason to say that she should still say the blessings over the Torah before this study, because according to the Ashkenazic ruling, women make a blessing over fulfilling a commandment even if they are not obligated in that commandment.

We can learn this from the ruling of the Gera, who rejects the Agur’s reasoning regarding why women are obligated to say the blessings over the Torah, because women are exempt from studying Torah. The reason that women say the blessings over the Torah is that women make blessings over fulfilling commandments from which they are exempt:

See the Magen Avraham in the name of the Agur. Their words are rejected for several reasons, as the verse proclaims: “You should teach your sons – and not your daughters.” How can they say: “and commanded us” and “gave to us?” Rather, the main reason is according to what Tosafot and other rabbis wrote, that women say blessings over time-bound commandments [even though they are exempt from them]. (Biur Ha-Gera, Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 47:14)

Opinion #2: The blessings over the Torah are blessings of praise.

According to the second position, the blessings over the Torah are blessings of praise. This is what Nachmanides writes:

We are commanded to thank God every time we read the Torah, for the great kindness that he did for us by giving us His Torah, and telling us what deeds He desires in order for us to gain life in the World to Come. Just as we are commanded to say a blessing before eating, so too we are commanded [to say the blessings over the Torah]… From this principle, it becomes clear that this blessing is from the Torah. (Nachmanides’ Glosses on Maimonides’ Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, Positive Commandments Omitted by Maimonides, Mitzvah 15)

Similarly, the Sefer Ha-Hinukh writes: “All other blessings are from the Rabbis, except for one that is from the Torah, and this is said explicitly in Berakhot 21a: This is the blessing over the Torah which is said before… Therefore, God obligated us to thank Him before reading the Torah” (Mitzvah 430).

The Tzitz Eliezer explains the reasoning that the Torah is relevant to women, and so too, the blessings (as part of the Torah), even if women are not obligated to study Torah:

But I think that maybe this is referring to the explanation that the Hidushei Ha-Griz Ha-Levi Z”L brings in Chapter 11 of Hilkhot Brakhot, Halakha 16, in the name of his father Ha-Gaon Ha-Grah Z”L, who explains that women say the blessings over the Torah, because in the blessings over the Torah, the blessing is not on fulfilling the commandment of Torah study, but, rather, it is its own law that the Torah requires a blessing. Women are exempt only from the commandment of Torah study; the Torah itself is not expropriated from them. See the passage there. If so, one can say that this is really what the Maharshal meant, and this is what the Hida’s explanation of his words meant, that because the words of Torah are relevant to women when they learn about the commandments that they need to know, if so, they should make a blessing on Torah study itself, because it is its own law that the Torah requires a blessing… it is good that they need to make a blessing on their study. (Responsa Tzitz Eliezer, Part 14, Siman 24)

The Tzitz Eliezer clarifies that the blessing is not on fulfilling the commandment of Torah study, from which women are exempt, but, rather, women should make a blessing on learning Torah, because the Torah itself requires a blessing – just as we learned from the rabbis that the source of the blessing is: “‘When I proclaim the Lord’s name.”

Similarly, the Mishneh Halakhot (Part VII, Siman 13) accepts this position. He supports the Ashkenazic formulation: “to engage in the words of Torah” (rather than “regarding the words of Torah” according to the Sefardic formulation) because this formulation is specifically about reading the Torah, not about fulfilling the commandment of Torah study.  But after this, he expands the blessing to include fulfilling the Torah in its broader sense, that everything a person does should be according to the Torah:

It is better to make the blessing “to engage in the words of Torah,” which is a special blessing for reading the Torah in which he is now going to engage, than to say, “regarding the words of Torah” which also includes the commandments that he is not about to do now, and for each of which he will say its own special blessing when he does that commandment. Were I not concerned about my rabbis, I would say that in my humble opinion “to engage” also includes doing the commandments… as I said, “to engage in the words of Torah” includes everything he engages in, that it should be according to the words of Torah, and all of his business dealings and everything he does should be according to the Torah… similar to “If you follow my statutes”  – which means that you should labor in the Torah – “and I will bring rain in its time.” According to this, “to engage” includes all of the other commandments as well, and it is better for women to make the blessing: “to engage in the words of Torah.”

Regarding your question, whether women are allowed to learn Torah before saying the blessings over the Torah, one should make the blessings before studying according to both of these approaches. If the blessings are on fulfilling the commandment of Torah study, then one should make the blessing and then fulfill the commandment. Even if the blessings are blessings of praise, we must pay attention to the language of the decisors that we saw, that one should say the blessing before engaging in the Torah itself (as we can from the lines that are in bold). This works well with the words of the Gemara that we saw in the opening of this responsum, where Moses calls on the people of Israel to connect reading the Torah with words of praise.

With blessings of Torah,

Rachel