Or HaChaim on Deuteronomy 31:12/אור החיים על דברים ל״א:י״ב

1 הקהל את העם,..למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו, "assemble the people…in order that they hearken and in order that they learn, etc." Why did Moses have to write the word למען, "in order that," twice? Would it not have been simpler to write למען ישמעו וילמדו?

2Perhaps the answer is contained in the very instructions to Moses having been to "assemble the people, the men, the women and the children" in order to read the Torah before them, something women are not obligated to hear. In Deut 11,19 the Torah's instructions to teach it had been reserved for בניכם, your male children, as opposed to your daughters (compare Kidushin 29). This may have been the reason the Torah separated the "hearing" from the "learning" in our verse and wrote the word למען twice. The males, including the male children, were to study the Torah; the women and their daughters were to listen to the Torah.

3The Torah first speaks about למען ישמעו, "in order that they hearken" as it refers to the negative commandments which apply equally to men and women.

4The words למען ילמדו, "in order that they learn," refer to the positive commandments many of which women are not obligated to perform if they must be performed only at certain times. Had the Torah lumped both statements together we would have concluded that negative and positive commandments both carry the same penalties.

5I have seen a statement by our sages in Chagigah 3 "the women were to come to listen whereas the men were to attend in order to study."