The gemorah brings a story that happened with a woman that she made milah on 2 of her sons and they died, until she brought the 3rdbefore R' Nosson, etc...
My question is why does the gemorah speak about this woman coming before R' Nosson. What chiyuv does the mother have in making sure amilah is performed on her son? Seemingly this woman wasn't doing itherself, rather getting the mohel. However I though the chiyuv is onthe Father?
Thanks
Yehoshua
Yerushalayim, Eretz Yisrael
1. The Or Zaru'a (beginning of Hilchos Milah, 92:2, part 2, page 49) cites another place in the Gemara which mentions the mother in connection with the Mitzvah of Milah. The Gemara in Yevamos (71b) describes a scenario where the father and mother of the baby are in prison and therefore cannot do Milah for the baby. The Gemara there implies that the mother also has the Mitzvah of performing Milah on her son.
2. In addition, the Torah (Shemos 4:25) that Tziporah performed Milah on her son. These sources, like our Gemara, appear to suggest that the mother has a Mitzvah to circumcise her son.
3. However, the Or Zaru'a writes that in fact this is not the case. The mother is not obligated to circumcise her son. The Gemara in Yevamos means simply that if only the father was in prison and not the mother, in practice the mother would have performed the Milah -- not because she is obligataed to do so, but simply for practical reasons that the mother is generally the person who looks after the needs of the baby. Similarly, the Gemara in Shabbos (134a) means that the father was not available to do the Milah, so the mother naturally took over her husband's job. This is also why Tziporah did her son's Milah -- because Moshe Rabeinu was not present.
4. However, the son of the Or Zar'ua, in Teshuvos Maharach Or Zaru'a (end of #11), gives a different explanation. He asserts that the Torah exempts the mother only when the father is able to do the Milah. If the father is unable to do the Mitzvah, then the mother becomes obligated mid'Oraisa to circumcise her son. According to this opinion, we may say that in Shabbos (134a) the father was not available to do the Mitzvah, and as a result the mother became obligated.
5. The Sefer Hamakneh (Kidushin 29a, DH Sham, as cited by the Minchas Chinuch, Mitzvah 2:9, DH u'Binosi) writes that even though a woman is exempt from the Mitzvah of circumcising her son, this means only that she does not have a special obligation specifically towards her son. However, she does have an obligation to perform Milah in the same way that every Jew is obligated to do Milah on a male who has not had a Bris. According to this explanation, we can understand why, in the case in Shabbos (134a), the woman brought her son to the Bris; since the father was not there, she had an obligation like everyone else to ensure that the baby had a Bris.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom