Kiddushin 6-7
Aug. 20th, 2023 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDaf 6
The Gemara brings a Mishna that says that the husband can say all sorts of things in place of Harei At Mekudeshet Li, all sorts of similar phrases, and still enact kiddushin. Translating loosely, they are things like "You are attached to me" or "You are committed to me", things that are themily connected to marriage but don't reflect a clear intention of communicating "By giving you this ring, we are committing to be married to each other and not permitted to anyone else."
The Gemara interrogates the limits of this.
One limit: It has to be linguistically clear. They bring a particular word that meant betrothed in Judea but not in Bavel, and after some back and forth conclude that it only has force to effectuate Kiddushin in Judea. So you have to use words that everyone will understand to clearly mean kiddushin. I think an analogous case in the modern world might be something like an overly cute romcom with the minister asking the couple "Do you take Sarah to be your boo?" Not kosher.
Another, more confusing, but definitely relevant limit: It can't be mistaken for some other plausible commitment. I'm going to spell this out much more clearly than the Gemara does, but I'm pretty sure this is what we're talking about.
A) Say the woman is a laundrywoman and you go up to her and you talk about her rates for laundry, and you say you're looking to get a long term contract that someone will take your laundry, and then you give her a fifty dollar bill and say "Harei at mekudeshet li" and she takes the money. Probably, assuming she's aware of what "Harei at mekudeshet li" means, she is actually committed as your wife now, not as your launderer.
B) But if you go up to a laundrywoman and talk about her about your laundry needs, and then you give her fifty dollars and say, you know, "You are committed to me" and she takes the money, even though this is an acceptable phrase to enact kiddushin, the obvious inference is that she accepted the money as kinyan to become your laundrywoman, not to be your wife.
C) So what the Gemara requires is if you use one of these vaguer phrases, you have to be talking about marriage beforehand, not laundry. You have to be like, "Sarah, I've been thinking of getting married, and I think it's time for me to be married," and then you give her the money and say "You are committed to me" and she takes the money. According to one opinion, you have to be explicitly talking about marriage to her, according to the other opinion, even if you didn't specifically communicate previously that you were intending to get married to HER, it's enough that she's aware that you're performing the act of kinyan in the context of a discussion of marriage.
It feels like most explicitly the Gemara is concerned about making sure all the legal forms are fulfilled so that nobody can say this marriage didn't happen later, but I'm not sure what the concern behind the concern is. Are we worried that a man, who in Amoraic times is able to marry multiple wives and therefore isn't as burdened by the commitment of kiddushin, will go around tricking women into marrying him and making them agunot? Or are we concerned to open up the possibility of invalid marriages, so that if a husband refuses to grant a gett, we can get a beis din to declare the marriage invalid since his declaration of kiddushin was too vague? Both are consequences of this halacha, depending on enforcement.
I think this is really interesting in a practical sociological sense. Given that we do the whole kiddushin/nisuin today in a language that most people at a wedding don't speak, what lesson do we learn from the rule that you can only use the Judean word in Judea? On the one hand, surely there must be some kallahs today who don't know what "Harei at mekudeshet li" means. Should we be doing this in English for their sake? or Araminglish? "Harei, at betrothed li"? On the other hand, today we perform kiddushin as part of chuppah in a context where everyone Jewishly literate enough to be participating in a Jewish wedding knows exactly, step by step, what each part of the formula is accomplishing even if they don't understand the words. Is understanding the context more important, or is understanding the meaning of the words more important?
Daf 7
Back a few blatt ago it was seemingly established that the father gets the money from kiddushin kesef, but maybe that was just established for when she's a minor or a naarah? Here we start discussing various scenarios in the name of Rav where instead of the chasan giving the kallah kesef, some other more complicated transaction is done involving a third party.
If a woman tells a man, if you give money to this third guy, you will be married to me, does that work? Gemara says yes because it's analogous to a case of a loan guarantor, in the sense that the kinyan takes effect and obligates the guarantor even though the guarantor doesn't get or give any money as part of the original kinyan process. This makes a sort of formal legal sense, but still you would think the woman has to get some benefit out of the process. YCT podcast says Rambam says the benefit is psychological benefit, of knowing that her chasan is willing to do a thing because she asked it, that knowledge is worth a perutah.
Next, if a man tells another man, give money to that woman and I will become betrothed to her? Gemara says yes, because it's analogous to a case of the redemption of a Canaanite slave, who is unable to have money of their own and therefore must be redeemed through the money of a third party. Again, this makes a sort of formal legal sense, but you would expect that the man would have to be directly involved in the transaction that results in his marriage. But presumably he becomes indebted in some way, direct or indirect, to the person who pays the kesef on his behalf, so there still is a commitment on his part that comes with a cost.
But now that we've established that the chasan doesn't need to pay money himself and the kallah doesn't need to receive money herself, so we seem to have completely separated kiddushin from the conceptual framing of a man acquiring a woman by paying money. So Rav asks the obvious question- what if the kallah gives money to the chasan, is that okay since you have an exchange of money that formalizes the kinyan? Well, no, that's theoretically too far, the Gemara has already established that this doesn't work since in some sense in the original framing of the Gemara, it would mean the woman is acquiring herself. But if the chasan is a person who is not accustomed to receiving gifts, and he receives the money from the kallah, then she receives the ha'naah of having given a gift to a person who doesn't typically receive gifts, and that says Mar Zutra is worth more than a perutah.
The Gemara brings a Mishna that says that the husband can say all sorts of things in place of Harei At Mekudeshet Li, all sorts of similar phrases, and still enact kiddushin. Translating loosely, they are things like "You are attached to me" or "You are committed to me", things that are themily connected to marriage but don't reflect a clear intention of communicating "By giving you this ring, we are committing to be married to each other and not permitted to anyone else."
The Gemara interrogates the limits of this.
One limit: It has to be linguistically clear. They bring a particular word that meant betrothed in Judea but not in Bavel, and after some back and forth conclude that it only has force to effectuate Kiddushin in Judea. So you have to use words that everyone will understand to clearly mean kiddushin. I think an analogous case in the modern world might be something like an overly cute romcom with the minister asking the couple "Do you take Sarah to be your boo?" Not kosher.
Another, more confusing, but definitely relevant limit: It can't be mistaken for some other plausible commitment. I'm going to spell this out much more clearly than the Gemara does, but I'm pretty sure this is what we're talking about.
A) Say the woman is a laundrywoman and you go up to her and you talk about her rates for laundry, and you say you're looking to get a long term contract that someone will take your laundry, and then you give her a fifty dollar bill and say "Harei at mekudeshet li" and she takes the money. Probably, assuming she's aware of what "Harei at mekudeshet li" means, she is actually committed as your wife now, not as your launderer.
B) But if you go up to a laundrywoman and talk about her about your laundry needs, and then you give her fifty dollars and say, you know, "You are committed to me" and she takes the money, even though this is an acceptable phrase to enact kiddushin, the obvious inference is that she accepted the money as kinyan to become your laundrywoman, not to be your wife.
C) So what the Gemara requires is if you use one of these vaguer phrases, you have to be talking about marriage beforehand, not laundry. You have to be like, "Sarah, I've been thinking of getting married, and I think it's time for me to be married," and then you give her the money and say "You are committed to me" and she takes the money. According to one opinion, you have to be explicitly talking about marriage to her, according to the other opinion, even if you didn't specifically communicate previously that you were intending to get married to HER, it's enough that she's aware that you're performing the act of kinyan in the context of a discussion of marriage.
It feels like most explicitly the Gemara is concerned about making sure all the legal forms are fulfilled so that nobody can say this marriage didn't happen later, but I'm not sure what the concern behind the concern is. Are we worried that a man, who in Amoraic times is able to marry multiple wives and therefore isn't as burdened by the commitment of kiddushin, will go around tricking women into marrying him and making them agunot? Or are we concerned to open up the possibility of invalid marriages, so that if a husband refuses to grant a gett, we can get a beis din to declare the marriage invalid since his declaration of kiddushin was too vague? Both are consequences of this halacha, depending on enforcement.
I think this is really interesting in a practical sociological sense. Given that we do the whole kiddushin/nisuin today in a language that most people at a wedding don't speak, what lesson do we learn from the rule that you can only use the Judean word in Judea? On the one hand, surely there must be some kallahs today who don't know what "Harei at mekudeshet li" means. Should we be doing this in English for their sake? or Araminglish? "Harei, at betrothed li"? On the other hand, today we perform kiddushin as part of chuppah in a context where everyone Jewishly literate enough to be participating in a Jewish wedding knows exactly, step by step, what each part of the formula is accomplishing even if they don't understand the words. Is understanding the context more important, or is understanding the meaning of the words more important?
Daf 7
Back a few blatt ago it was seemingly established that the father gets the money from kiddushin kesef, but maybe that was just established for when she's a minor or a naarah? Here we start discussing various scenarios in the name of Rav where instead of the chasan giving the kallah kesef, some other more complicated transaction is done involving a third party.
If a woman tells a man, if you give money to this third guy, you will be married to me, does that work? Gemara says yes because it's analogous to a case of a loan guarantor, in the sense that the kinyan takes effect and obligates the guarantor even though the guarantor doesn't get or give any money as part of the original kinyan process. This makes a sort of formal legal sense, but still you would think the woman has to get some benefit out of the process. YCT podcast says Rambam says the benefit is psychological benefit, of knowing that her chasan is willing to do a thing because she asked it, that knowledge is worth a perutah.
Next, if a man tells another man, give money to that woman and I will become betrothed to her? Gemara says yes, because it's analogous to a case of the redemption of a Canaanite slave, who is unable to have money of their own and therefore must be redeemed through the money of a third party. Again, this makes a sort of formal legal sense, but you would expect that the man would have to be directly involved in the transaction that results in his marriage. But presumably he becomes indebted in some way, direct or indirect, to the person who pays the kesef on his behalf, so there still is a commitment on his part that comes with a cost.
But now that we've established that the chasan doesn't need to pay money himself and the kallah doesn't need to receive money herself, so we seem to have completely separated kiddushin from the conceptual framing of a man acquiring a woman by paying money. So Rav asks the obvious question- what if the kallah gives money to the chasan, is that okay since you have an exchange of money that formalizes the kinyan? Well, no, that's theoretically too far, the Gemara has already established that this doesn't work since in some sense in the original framing of the Gemara, it would mean the woman is acquiring herself. But if the chasan is a person who is not accustomed to receiving gifts, and he receives the money from the kallah, then she receives the ha'naah of having given a gift to a person who doesn't typically receive gifts, and that says Mar Zutra is worth more than a perutah.