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May a man who has already fulfilled his shofar obligation blow shofar for a woman on Rosh Hashanah? The Baal Itur forbids it while Rav Yehuda permits it. The shiur develops that the core dispute is not about violating shvus for another's benefit, but whether a man's blowing creates a "tekiah shel mitzvah (מצוה)" that enables the woman to be yotzei.
The shiur opens with the Shagas Aryeh's question (siman 104-105) on the Rambam (רמב"ם): if women may perform mitzvos asei she'hazman grama and receive credit for them (as Rabbeinu Tam says, based on the principle that women's smicha is reshus and therefore a valid mitzvah (מצוה)), why does the Rambam rule that women may blow shofar despite the rabbinic prohibition (shvus) of blowing shofar unnecessarily, yet forbids women from wearing tefillin (mochin b'yadom) due to guf naki concerns? The inconsistency suggests that either mitzvah should override the concern, or both should be prohibited. The shiur then introduces the fundamental dispute. The Baal Itur (quoted by the Rosh in Rosh Hashanah, perek 4 siman 7) rules that a man who has already been yotzei may not blow shofar for a woman, since doing so would constitute an issur shvus with no mitzvah justification. The Baal Itur reports that the minhag in Ashkenaz was for men to blow for women before davening—before the men themselves were yotzei—so that the blowing would still be a tekiah shel mitzvah. Rav Yehuda, however, disagrees, bringing proof from Chagigah 16b: women performed smicha on korbanos even though this involved a rabbinic prohibition (avodah b'kodshim), and Chazal permitted it "l'nachas ruach nashim." If violating a shvus is permitted to give women nachas ruach, then a man should be allowed to blow shofar for a woman even after he is yotzei.
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Rosh Hashanah; Chagigah 16b; Shagas Aryeh 104-105
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