Masechet Kiddushin 3
Aug. 16th, 2023 05:54 pmDaf 3
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lannamichaels noted, Daf 2b veers off into a detour about grammar nonsense, and 3a continues it. Sometimes the word derech is masculine and sometimes it's feminine, just accept that it's grammatically genderfluid already.
Then the Gemara goes back to analyzing the Mishna. The Mishna says there are three ways of effecting kiddushin, and then lists three things. Since people can count to three on their own, the Gemara understands the Mishna to be explicitly mentioning three in order to say that it is three and only three, and therefore excluding other methods you might think would effect kiddushin. What other methods? The first explanation is that it's excluding chuppah, meaning that kiddushin and erusin need to be separate acts. Why? The Gemara doesn't say, maybe it'll cover it later. Maybe it's just that kiddushin and erusin involve different marital obligations, as I discussed yesterday, and so there's value in treating them separately to make sure there's no confusion about which obligations are in effect. The other answer, according to Rav Huna, is that perhaps the Mishna is excluding forms of kinyan that involve exchange of kesef less than a perutah, such as chalipin, a procedure in Talmudic contract law where you execute kinyan with the formalized exchange of an essentially worthless object like a handkerchief, which represents a different object that is being exchanged but can't be delivered immediately. No, says the Gemara, you must exchange something of at least minimal real value. Because of Kever Machpelah, obviously. Rashi says that it's because acquiring a wife with an object of exchange with no value is insulting to her, which is, you know, that classic Rashi thing of being extraordinarily sensitive to women's emotions in the micro but missing the bigger picture.
Similarly, the Mishna says there are two ways to effect separation between a woman and her husband, divorce or his death. This enumeration, it says, is to exclude chalitzah. Meaning one might possibly think that since a widow's brother in law who is married to her via yibum can create separation via chalitzah, that chalitzah is just a procedure that can effectuate divorce, not a specific weird ritual just for levirate marriage. This is really fascinating, because no, I had never thought that. I can't imagine anyone would think that. But I can also sort of see the logic? (R' Linzer describes this question as the first of a series of 'humorous kal vachomers' in Kiddushin)
(It's been a while since I blogged Daf Yomi, and I am self-conscious about how much untranslated Hebrew and Aramaic I used here, so I'll just repeat for the exercise that I'm happy to translate anything anyone has questions about.)
As
lannamichaels noted, Daf 2b veers off into a detour about grammar nonsense, and 3a continues it. Sometimes the word derech is masculine and sometimes it's feminine, just accept that it's grammatically genderfluid already.Then the Gemara goes back to analyzing the Mishna. The Mishna says there are three ways of effecting kiddushin, and then lists three things. Since people can count to three on their own, the Gemara understands the Mishna to be explicitly mentioning three in order to say that it is three and only three, and therefore excluding other methods you might think would effect kiddushin. What other methods? The first explanation is that it's excluding chuppah, meaning that kiddushin and erusin need to be separate acts. Why? The Gemara doesn't say, maybe it'll cover it later. Maybe it's just that kiddushin and erusin involve different marital obligations, as I discussed yesterday, and so there's value in treating them separately to make sure there's no confusion about which obligations are in effect. The other answer, according to Rav Huna, is that perhaps the Mishna is excluding forms of kinyan that involve exchange of kesef less than a perutah, such as chalipin, a procedure in Talmudic contract law where you execute kinyan with the formalized exchange of an essentially worthless object like a handkerchief, which represents a different object that is being exchanged but can't be delivered immediately. No, says the Gemara, you must exchange something of at least minimal real value. Because of Kever Machpelah, obviously. Rashi says that it's because acquiring a wife with an object of exchange with no value is insulting to her, which is, you know, that classic Rashi thing of being extraordinarily sensitive to women's emotions in the micro but missing the bigger picture.
Similarly, the Mishna says there are two ways to effect separation between a woman and her husband, divorce or his death. This enumeration, it says, is to exclude chalitzah. Meaning one might possibly think that since a widow's brother in law who is married to her via yibum can create separation via chalitzah, that chalitzah is just a procedure that can effectuate divorce, not a specific weird ritual just for levirate marriage. This is really fascinating, because no, I had never thought that. I can't imagine anyone would think that. But I can also sort of see the logic? (R' Linzer describes this question as the first of a series of 'humorous kal vachomers' in Kiddushin)
(It's been a while since I blogged Daf Yomi, and I am self-conscious about how much untranslated Hebrew and Aramaic I used here, so I'll just repeat for the exercise that I'm happy to translate anything anyone has questions about.)