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Regarding women saying Kiddush Levana, the Mishnah Berurah Siman 426 סק"א, quoting the Shlah, writes:

ונשים פטורות מלקדש הלבנה דהוי מ"ע שהזמן גרמא ואף דכל מ"ע שהזמן גרמא נוהגות הנשים שמקיימות ומברכות עליהן מ"מ מצוה זו אין צריכין לקיימה משום דהם גרמו פגם הלבנה.

Women are exempt from blessing the moon, since it's a positive time-bound mitzvah. Even though women do practice positive time-bound mitzvos, even making blessings on them, nevertheless this mitzvah they don't need to fulfill, since they caused the Moon's blemish.

Two questions:

1) What does it mean women caused the Moon's blemish? The only thing I can think of is Chava tempting Adam to eat from the tree somehow caused the moon to shrink, but Chazal in Chulin 60b say that happened earlier in creation. Unless you say that the moon will be restored to its glory when Moshiach comes, when the world's purpose comes to fruition, which would have happened the first week of creation had Chava not sinned...

2) If women cause the blemish, shouldn't they help fix it by blessing the moon and praying for its revival? Similar to what the Mishnah Berurah Siman 263 סקי"ב writes regarding why specifically women light Shabbos candles:

ועוד טעם מפני שכבתה נרו של עולם שגרמה מיתה לאדם הראשון

Another reason is because she extinguished the light of the world since she caused the death of Adam

robev
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  • While you deserve a proper answer, here is the text of Shela: של"ה שער האותיות אות הקו"ף - קדושה:
    ולא ראינו מעולם נשים מקיימות קידוש הלבנה, אף שהן נזהרות בכל התפילות, מפני שפגם הלבנה גרמה האשה הראשונה, דהיינו חטא חוה, ומתרחקים מפני הבושה     – mevaqesh May 14 '17 at 03:24
  • What are you referring to them fixing with the Shabbos candles? – DonielF May 14 '17 at 04:04
  • IMHO the second question should perhaps be asked separately. Incidentally, I suspect that the answer the second question is the he is trying to find justification for the regnant practice of women not saying kiddush levana. So, even though their fault is used in other places as an argument for further involvement, here it is used as justification for less. – mevaqesh May 14 '17 at 04:44
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    Partial duplicate. First question can be found here: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/48539/what-did-women-have-to-do-with-the-moons-shrinking – yydl May 14 '17 at 04:50
  • @yydl That answer now has its first sourced answer. It would probably make sense to close this, and ask the second half separately. – mevaqesh May 14 '17 at 05:20
  • I wasn't asking for a source, I was asking for an explanation. I don't see a proper explanation there, especially as there seems to be a disagreement how to read the phrase מפני שפגם הלבנה גרמה האשה הראשונה, some there read it as the pgam of the moon caused woman's sin, or woman's sin caused the Moon's pgam – robev May 14 '17 at 12:41
  • I like mevaqesh's answer there. Couldn't I just edit this question rather than closing it and starting a new one? – robev May 14 '17 at 12:50
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    @robev Sure, but in the meantime it does seem like a duplicate. – DonielF May 14 '17 at 13:03

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