Sanhedrin 015
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BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI
of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel
RABIN MISHNAH STUDY GROUP
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סְמִיכַת זְקֵנִים וַעֲרִיפַת עֶגְלָה, בִּשְׁלשָׁה, דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן. וְרַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר, בַּחֲמִשָּׁה. הַחֲלִיצָה וְהַמֵּאוּנִין, בִּשְׁלשָׁה. נֶטַע רְבָעִי וּמַעֲשֵׂר שֵׁנִי שֶׁאֵין דָּמָיו יְדוּעִין, בִּשְׁלשָׁה. הַהֶקְדֵּשׁוֹת, בִּשְׁלשָׁה. הָעֲרָכִין הַמִּטַּלְטְלִין, בִּשְׁלשָׁה. רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר, אֶחָד מֵהֶן כֹּהֵן. וְהַקַּרְקָעוֹת, תִּשְׁעָה וְכֹהֵן. וְאָדָם, כַּיּוֹצֵא בָהֶן:
Designation by Elders and the Decapitation of the Calf are done before [a Bet Din of] three, according to Rabbi Shim'on; Rabbi Yehudah is of the opinion [that the number is] five. Ĥalitzah and Refusal [must be done before a Bet Din of] three. Redemption of Neta Reva'i and of a second tithe which is of unknown magnitude [must be done before] three. Redemption of Donations to the Bet Mikdash [must be done before] three. Evaluation of chattels [must be done before] three; Rabbi Yehudah says that one of them must be a priest. [Evaluation of] real estate [must be done before a Bet Din of] nine with a priest added. [Evaluation of] a human being – similarly.
EXPLANATIONS (continued):
16:
The second text (in presumed order composition) that we must consider is Genesis Chapter 38. This chapter presents the story of Tamar. Judah (the same one who was instrumental in getting Joseph sold into Egyptian slavery) marries off his eldest son, Er, to Tamar, but she is soon left a childless widow. Judah now marries Tamar to Er's brother, Onan. Onan is so displeased at this match that he refrains from impregnating Tamar, thus frustrating the whole purpose of the marriage. (The reason for Er's behaviour may be guessed at. It was probably caused for the same reasons as the Go'el in the story of Ruth refused to marry her: economic reasons. At any rate, it was certainly not because of any aversion to Tamar herself, since Onan prevented her from becoming pregnant not by refraining from sexual relations but by practicing coitus interruptus (verse 9) – or as Rashi puts it more delicately, by "threshing inside but sowing outside". (We may thus note parenthetically that the Victorian term "Onanism" is a complete misnomer!) Onan also dies, leaving Tamar a childless widow for the second time. 17: 18: 19:
When brothers live together and one of them dies without leaving a son, the woman shall not marry a stranger from outside [the family], but her brother-in-law shall impregnate her and take her as his wife. The firstborn son that she shall bear him shall be counted as the [deceased] brother's, so that his line shall not be erased from Israel. If this man does not want to marry his sister-in-law, she shall approach the elders sitting [as judges] in the gateway, and inform them that "my brother-in-law refuses to eternalize his brother's line in Israel and he refuses me levirate marriage". The elders shall summon him and persuade him [to do his duty] but if he steadfast in his refusal by saying "I do not want to marry her", then his sister-in-law shall approach him in the presence of the elders; she shall remove his shoe from his foot, expectorate before him, and loudly declare, "Thus shall be done to a man who refuses to build up his brother's house!"
Again we note the outrage of the woman at being deprived of her security. But we also note that the quaint custom described in Ruth as purely testamentary – one contracting party taking off a shoe of the other contracting party – has now become an act of scorn and humiliation. We can assume that brothers-in-law were becoming less amenable to levirate marriage and that this "social" coercion was designed to ensure the woman's humanitarian rights.
20: To be continued. DISCUSSION:
In our last shiur I described in some detail the ceremony of the Decapitation of the Calf. Sherry Fyman is "puzzled by the statement made by the elders when decapitating the calf. How could they say "It was not our hands that shed this blood" when it so deliberately was their hands? What is the point of making so empty and false a statement? Why didn't they make the statement without killing the animal?"
I respond: I apologize for not making the issue clearer. The elders are exculpating themselves from the blood originally shed, not the blood of the calf! Remember, this whole ceremony was caused by the discovery of a human corpse and no one can be implicated in the murder. Thus the elders must make it clear that "our hands did not shed this [man's] blood". I do not think that the blood of the decapitated calf worried them at all! Albert Ringer writes: I have the impression that the levirate marriage is part of the notion of the divine order in the country. After the people came in the land every tribe and family got its own land in possession. Levirate marriage is a mechanism to preserve this order (so that the deceased's title shall not be cut off from his brethren). I respond: I believe this explanation to be essentially correct. In our last shiur I wrote: That the woman herself should take over the property was unthinkable, because she might then marry again, and if she married someone who was not of the same tribe as her late husband and had children by this second husband, the holding would eventually leave the possession of the tribe. David Bockman asks: Why did the Torah restrict all women from inheriting property when a less severe restriction on whom the woman might be allowed to remarry would suffice to solve the same problem? I respond: This is a most interesting question, since in a slightly different context the solution suggested by David is the solution actually enshrined in the Torah. In the Torah [Numbers 27:1-11] we read of a man called Tzelofĥad, who died leaving only daughters. The daughters demand that they be permitted to inherit their father's estate and the justice of their claim is recognized by God, and the law is promulgated accordingly. So far so good. However, a few chapters later [Numbers 36:1-12] we find that the law doesn't work so well. Tzelofĥad was of the tribe of Menasheh, and the people of Menasheh objected to the loss of the tribal estates that would be involved if Tzelofĥad's daughters "married out" of the tribe. If this phenomenon were to become a regular occurrence it would not be too long before "the divine order in the country", as Albert Ringer called it above, would become an impossibility since "every tribe and family got its own land in possession" would no longer be true. That is why [verses 6-9] God amends the previous law and restricts daughters inheriting to marriage within their own tribe only. The principle that "sons inherit and daughters do not" is upheld by the sages, but in the fullness of time it was ingeniously circumvented by having fathers make large portions of their estate a part of their daughters' marriage portion. More of your very interesting questions next time. Purim Same'aË to everybody. |