Sanhedrin 103

(The Torah then goes on to exculpate the girl if the rape took place in the countryside, since it is possible that she screamed and there was no one to hear.)

2:
The context of the law in the Torah makes it clear that the subject of the law is rape. However, the victim is not any woman: the Torah is very specific (and the sages were later to restrict the specification even more, as we shall see). The law, which is the subject of our mishnah is concerned with an affianced girl who was raped by a man other than her fiancé. In order to understand the rulings of our mishnah we must first explain several technicalities.

1. A conjugal relationship is created between a man and a woman from the moment that she accepts from him Kiddushin. This involves the transfer of an object of at least minimal value from the man to the woman, accompanied by his declaration that her acceptance of this object will make her his wife. (A more complete understanding of this procedure can be gleaned from our study of Tractate Kiddushin [November 1995 onwards].) There are other ways of effecting Kiddushin, but to this day the overwhelming majority of marriages are effected by "him" giving "her" a ring and she accepting it of her own free will.
2. In earlier times Kiddushin created what seems to us an anomalous situation: although the couple were "affianced" and were considered a married couple for almost all intents and purposes, they did not live together as man and wife until about a year later, and she remained for this period "in her father's house". At the end of the year a second ceremony was held during which the bride was escorted to her husband's abode and the Seven Marriage Benedictions were recited. Sometime after the Talmudic period this "waiting period" was deemed intolerable and the two ceremonies were conflated into one, as they are to this day. It is customary to artificially separate the two ceremonies by the public reading of the Ketubbah [Marriage Deed], an act which halakhically is quite unnecessary. It thus transpires that the subject of our mishnah is now an impossibility: there is no way an "affianced" woman can be raped unless the dastardly deed is done under the Ĥuppah during the reading of the Ketubbah!
3. The Torah is very specific that the victim of the rape is not just any woman but "a girl" who is "an affianced virgin". The term "girl" in this context is not used loosely. Halakhah recognizes only two possible statuses under law for the human male: until his thirteenth birthday he is a minor, thereafter he is "a major". For the human female there are three statuses: until her twelfth birthday she is a minor and when she reaches the age of twelve years and six months she is "a major"; during the intervening six months she is neither, and is termed a "girl" [Na'arah].

3:
It now becomes clear that our mishnah seeks to severely limit the application of the law of the Torah. Death by stoning for "copulating with an affianced woman" [as stipulated in Mishnah Four of our chapter] applies only to the rape of a young virgin between the age of twelve and twelve and one half who had received Kiddushin from another man but had not yet "entered the Ĥuppah". This is not the first or the last time that we observe the sages severely limiting the possible application of a Torah law by means of explication.

4:
The last clause of our mishnah seems to be concerned with gang rape. If more than one man rape such a girl only the first one technically answers to all the specifications. When the second man rapes her she is no longer a virgin. Thus the first is liable to death by stoning as stipulated already in Mishnah Four. Whenever one of more of the conditions we have described – a virgin between the age of 12 and twelve and one half who has accepted Kiddushin but has not yet "entered the Ĥuppah" – then the death penalty applicable is by strangulation. In Sanhedrin 088 I wrote:

In other words, where the Torah requires the death penalty but does not stipulate the mode of execution, the mode is by strangulation. Thus all cases of illicit copulation with a woman apart from that described by our mishnah fall into this category: the rape of a minor, the rape of an unmarried woman, the rape of a woman who was no longer a virgin, adultery and so forth. Several months ago I received the following message from Bayla Singer:

I hope that somewhere along the way in the discussion of this mishnah you will explain why adultery receives a less severe death penalty than does illicit copulation with an affianced woman. I do not wish to rush you into a premature discussion, so if you plan to deal with this in due course I will wait patiently.

I hope that Beyla now considers her request fulfilled!

In our last shiur David Bockman said that there might be a better way of seeing God through science (I had previously made the connection with the "Big Bang".) I responded: Yelammedenu Rabbenu! here is David's account:

According to Quantum Physical application of wave mechanics (mathematics), an observer is needed to "collapse the wave function" and reify any one solution of the wave equations. This is explained in the by-now classic thought experiment of Schrodinger's cat. Seal a cat into a box outfitted with a (cruel yet reliable) mechanism to release poisonous gas should a geiger counter click when sensing the decay of a certain radioactive atom. Mathematically, after a certain time, you
would, logically, be 50% sure that the atom has decayed, and thus that the gas has been released, killing the cat. What does 50% surety mean? Mathematically, the wave equation has two perfectly acceptable solutions, corresponding to either 'the cat is alive' or 'the cat is dead'. But at that time, is the cat actually alive or dead? Of course, you can only really determine which of the two equally likely possibilities has occurred if you open the box to observe whether the cat is alive or dead. Up until that point, however, physicists say one of two possibilities:

1. the cat is in a 'limbo', both alive and dead, until the box is opened and the wave function 'collapses' into one real-world solution, or
2. the situation creates two 'worlds' or universes; one in which the cat is 100% alive, and one in which the cat is 100% dead.

   Opening the box fixes your future along one of the two paths, through only one of the universes, a step which cannot be retraced (or a door that has become closed to you – see Maimonides' discussion of choices in Hilchot T'shuva). Either way you choose to understand what happens, when speaking of the 'reality' of our shared physical universe, the future (or even the present/life of the cat) cannot be said to actually exist until some measurement is taken, until an outside observer 'sees' that the cat is alive or dead. Similarly, in any number of quantum occurrences, an 'observer' who 'sees' the outcome is an absolute physical necessity for the existence of 'the universe'. To me, that spells an outside intelligence or observer ('God') who 'sees' what the Universe has become, and 'it is so'. This little explanation of mine also includes a programmatic aspect: to be like God, we need to observe (measure, understand, explore) our physical universe, and as we do so, we are 'partners' with God in 'creation', making the place more and more real as we progress. Now, aren't you sorry you asked?

   ---

   I had written: …it was not from "work" that God ceased, but from creative activity: the Torah does not use the Hebrew word for work, "Avodah", but uses another term, "Melakhah". When they came to interpret and elaborate on the dictates of the Torah, the sages had to address the important issue of how the term "Melakhah", in the context of Shabbat, is to be defined and understood.

   Jerry Gottesman writes:

   In light of what you wrote I have two questions:

   1. Is studying the Torah and finding new insights "creative"? But we study Torah and Talmud and Midrash on Shabbat.
   2. The Torah often uses the term Kol Melekhet Avodah Lo Ta'asuh But I am told that waiters can work on Shabbat.

   I guess in the final analysis, the sages came up with their list of forbidden activities based upon common practice in their day and reinforced it by detailed interpretation of the Torah text.

   I respond:

   From the Halakhic point of view a Melakhah must involve a physical action. Thinking, studying, philosophizing may all be creative, but they are not "physical actions" in the Halakhic sense. As far as waiters are concerned, one would need to know more details. However, generally speaking, one may indulge in "gainful employment" on Shabbat provided that no Melakhot are involved and no special payment is made for this work, but it is part of a remuneration for wider activities some of which may happen on Shabbat. Thus none of the pulpit rabbis are guilty of Sabbath desecration simply because they deliver a sermon on Shabbat and get paid for it!

   Shabbat Shalom.