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Masechet Ketubot Daf 7
Jul. 15th, 2022 08:53 amTuesday night my friend's klezmer band Baymele played a concert in Brooklyn in support of the release of a new album by Tsvey Brider, Cosmopolitn. Baymele played some wonderful instrumental klezmer, a mixture of traditional melodies from across Eastern Europe and some original compositions in a similar style. And they played backup to Tsvey Brider vocalist Anthony Russell for a set of striking pieces by Russell and Dimitri Gaskin, musical settings of early 20th century Yiddish poetry.
Many of the Yiddish poems, as is typical in my experience for a certain kind of Yiddish poetry, built arresting image after arresting image into a lush sensory memory, then landed with a vicious, darkly ironic punchline. Key themes included loneliness, lost love, unrequited love, poverty, and anti-Zionism. Russell introduced each performance by reading an English translation of the poem, but it wasn't clear how much the audience really needed it, it was full of Brooklyn Yiddish nerds. I mean, with my extremely limited Yiddish knowledge, I found it helpful. Knowing the context allowed me to follow along during the songs and make sense of what words I did understand.
The album's not out yet online, but I will post when it is available. Highly recommended.
Daf 7
So in some fashion, an important part of the mitzvah of getting married is the recitation of brachot. Famously the heart of the modern wedding ceremony is the Sheva Brachot, seven blessings, which the Gemara identifies as Birkas Chasanim, the blessings of the grooms, and only enumerates the latter six of. The first blessing, the blessing over the wine, was apparently added to the ritual later (but relatively speaking, not much later, the custom of seven blessings is old).
The blessings are recited in the presence of a minyan. R' Nachman traces this requirement to the story of Boaz and Ruth- when Boaz wanted to marry Ruth, he gathered ten elders and declared his intention. R' Abbahu says rather that we just learn it from the general principle of sanctifying God's name for mitzvot that affect all Israel with a minyan, and marriage even though it seems like the quintessentially private mitzvah, is considered the basic wellspring of Israel's existence. R' Abbahu wants this reading because he wants to impose a different halachic reading on the story of Boaz- that there was a halachic doubt about the validity of his marriage to the Moabite woman Ruth, so he convened a Beis Din to sanction his marriage. Why a Beis Din of 10, rather than just three? Because when there are matters of halachic doubt where people will gossip, a public Beis Din can create transparency to overcome doubters.
Finding halacha in the Ketuvim is always a little funny. In general, the Rabbis don't find rules of halacha in the Ketuvim, but they do find evidence of how halacha was interpreted. But sometimes it seems like it's a little more than that. There's this language of 'remez', where the Gemara sees the divinely inspired texts of the Ketuvim as having hidden clues that a discerning scholar can find to improve their knowledge of Torah and halacha.
R' Yehuda teaches in a baraita that it was the custom where he was (in Eretz Yisrael, but apparently not in Bavel) to recite the whole sheva brachos as part of erusin, along with the specific bracha of erusin. Abaye explains that the reason for this is that the custom there was to have some amount of seclusion with chasan and kallah as part of erusin, which I wish they explained more about. They had a private moment but without consummating the marriage? Or it was considered okay for them to consummate the marriage after erusin but before nisuin?
Earlier the Gemara established that before consummation the Sheva Brachos must be recited, but they seemed a little unclear how obligatory this really is. They tell a story of Rav Ashi permitting a chasan to consummate his marriage on Shabbos without a signed ketubah (my whole point the other day about how you'd think kinyan would be the problem with biah on Shabbos), and just saying that the kallah can simply start imposing the standard obligations of a chasan to his kallah and they'll catch up the paperwork later.
The Torah has ancient ideas about premarital sex that I think are constraining the Gemara. Premarital sex is not unambiguously an aveirah for the Torah, so though the Gemara clearly considers it immodest and improper, the Torah does not necessarily agree. Per the Torah, if a man has premarital sex with a woman, he just... has to marry her. Or if he refuses, he has to pay civil damages. So to go back to the story of R' Yehuda's custom, if a couple has done erusin and they sleep together, is there a problem? I mean, yes, there are problems with their paperwork, the Gemara really wants them to have a ketubah, but in some legal sense the consummation creates the marriage and the paperwork is just paperwork. So better to say the sheva brachos at erusin, that way if they do end up skipping ketubah you've at least done one part of the nisuin ritual right, and everything is okay d'oraysa if not d'rabbanan. I guess? Maybe that's why this is in Eretz Yisrael but not in Bavel, because in Eretz Yisrael customs were a little closer to the Torah idea of marriage?
Many of the Yiddish poems, as is typical in my experience for a certain kind of Yiddish poetry, built arresting image after arresting image into a lush sensory memory, then landed with a vicious, darkly ironic punchline. Key themes included loneliness, lost love, unrequited love, poverty, and anti-Zionism. Russell introduced each performance by reading an English translation of the poem, but it wasn't clear how much the audience really needed it, it was full of Brooklyn Yiddish nerds. I mean, with my extremely limited Yiddish knowledge, I found it helpful. Knowing the context allowed me to follow along during the songs and make sense of what words I did understand.
The album's not out yet online, but I will post when it is available. Highly recommended.
Daf 7
So in some fashion, an important part of the mitzvah of getting married is the recitation of brachot. Famously the heart of the modern wedding ceremony is the Sheva Brachot, seven blessings, which the Gemara identifies as Birkas Chasanim, the blessings of the grooms, and only enumerates the latter six of. The first blessing, the blessing over the wine, was apparently added to the ritual later (but relatively speaking, not much later, the custom of seven blessings is old).
The blessings are recited in the presence of a minyan. R' Nachman traces this requirement to the story of Boaz and Ruth- when Boaz wanted to marry Ruth, he gathered ten elders and declared his intention. R' Abbahu says rather that we just learn it from the general principle of sanctifying God's name for mitzvot that affect all Israel with a minyan, and marriage even though it seems like the quintessentially private mitzvah, is considered the basic wellspring of Israel's existence. R' Abbahu wants this reading because he wants to impose a different halachic reading on the story of Boaz- that there was a halachic doubt about the validity of his marriage to the Moabite woman Ruth, so he convened a Beis Din to sanction his marriage. Why a Beis Din of 10, rather than just three? Because when there are matters of halachic doubt where people will gossip, a public Beis Din can create transparency to overcome doubters.
Finding halacha in the Ketuvim is always a little funny. In general, the Rabbis don't find rules of halacha in the Ketuvim, but they do find evidence of how halacha was interpreted. But sometimes it seems like it's a little more than that. There's this language of 'remez', where the Gemara sees the divinely inspired texts of the Ketuvim as having hidden clues that a discerning scholar can find to improve their knowledge of Torah and halacha.
R' Yehuda teaches in a baraita that it was the custom where he was (in Eretz Yisrael, but apparently not in Bavel) to recite the whole sheva brachos as part of erusin, along with the specific bracha of erusin. Abaye explains that the reason for this is that the custom there was to have some amount of seclusion with chasan and kallah as part of erusin, which I wish they explained more about. They had a private moment but without consummating the marriage? Or it was considered okay for them to consummate the marriage after erusin but before nisuin?
Earlier the Gemara established that before consummation the Sheva Brachos must be recited, but they seemed a little unclear how obligatory this really is. They tell a story of Rav Ashi permitting a chasan to consummate his marriage on Shabbos without a signed ketubah (my whole point the other day about how you'd think kinyan would be the problem with biah on Shabbos), and just saying that the kallah can simply start imposing the standard obligations of a chasan to his kallah and they'll catch up the paperwork later.
The Torah has ancient ideas about premarital sex that I think are constraining the Gemara. Premarital sex is not unambiguously an aveirah for the Torah, so though the Gemara clearly considers it immodest and improper, the Torah does not necessarily agree. Per the Torah, if a man has premarital sex with a woman, he just... has to marry her. Or if he refuses, he has to pay civil damages. So to go back to the story of R' Yehuda's custom, if a couple has done erusin and they sleep together, is there a problem? I mean, yes, there are problems with their paperwork, the Gemara really wants them to have a ketubah, but in some legal sense the consummation creates the marriage and the paperwork is just paperwork. So better to say the sheva brachos at erusin, that way if they do end up skipping ketubah you've at least done one part of the nisuin ritual right, and everything is okay d'oraysa if not d'rabbanan. I guess? Maybe that's why this is in Eretz Yisrael but not in Bavel, because in Eretz Yisrael customs were a little closer to the Torah idea of marriage?