Sotah 048

3:
When a woman voluntarily accepts an object of a certain minimal value from a man who, in the presence of competent witnesses, has informed her that her acceptance of this object will make her his fiancée, such a woman is a betrothed woman. This means that she may not become betrothed or married to any other man unless the halakhic ties that now bind her to the man from whom she accepted Kiddushin are formally and legally broken. (Nowadays the object used for Kiddushin has been formalized into a wedding ring, which is usually of a much greater value than the minimum required!) After accepting Kiddushin the woman would usually remain in her present abode for quite some time – usually a year – until a second ceremony took place, called Nissu'in. In this ceremony the woman was formally introduced by the man into the home he had created for her and the seven marriage blessings were recited.

4:
For the past 1500 years or more both ceremonies – Kiddushin and Nissu'in – have been combined into one, which we call the marriage ceremony. The groom gives the bride Kiddushin (the ring) under the Ĥuppah (which represents the home) in the presence of competent witnesses. Subsequently the Seven Blessings of Nissu'in are recited, and these two ceremonies are – to a certain extent artificially – separated by the reading out loud of the Ketubah (the Marriage Contract), a public reading which is not halakhically essential at all.

5:
In ancient times, it now becomes apparent, a woman was considered married for a whole year before she actually began to live with her husband (and therefore before intimacies took place). This, of course, gave ample opportunity for a man to suspect that his betrothed has not been faithful to him. However, as our mishnah teaches, the sages utilized the very exact wording of the Torah to excuse such a woman from drinking the 'cursing waters'. A phrase used by the Torah [Numbers 5:29] is open to more than one interpretation. I have translated being under her husband, because it seems reasonably clear that the sages, at least, are taking the phrase to indicate a woman who is living intimately with her husband – and that does not include the betrothed woman.

To be continued.

Are children not included in "close family member"? I thought three generations were included (parents, siblings, children) and spouse.

I respond:

Lee is absolutely correct. The Torah requires statutory mourning for parents, siblings and offspring; it was the sages who added the spouse.

I wrote: A Jewish manservant must not wash the feet of his master, nor put his shoes on him, nor carry his things before him when going to the bath-house. Art Kamlet asks:

How do we understand this when considering the obligations of the Levite towards the Kohen?

I respond:

I do not understand the question. Are we to consider the relationship between a Kohen and a Levi as being one of master and slave?! This is obviously not the case, therefore surely the observation is irrelevant.

Concerning slavery in general, Albert Ringer writes:

I am sorry to say, I find it a bit too much oversimplification to speak about "what the world generally calls 'a slave'". Our modern view of servitude is colored very much by the suffering the West brought over people of African origin. In the Greek and Roman world, a large spectrum of different approaches to servitude existed. On one side of the scale, you could find slaves that were sent by the Roman court to the mines or gallows. These people did not survive their lot long. On the other side you could find a privileged slave, the pedagogue for instance, who in the classical Greek world had more status than women had. In the Hellenistic and Roman world in general, citizens had a higher status than native people of the land, who where considered captives of war and had to pay tribute. Jews that lived in cities probably were considered free people in Hellenistic times, native people by Rome. There is a theory that this loss of status is the main reason behind the Jewish revolt in Alexandria. In Egypt in ancient times, all the land and all the people belonged to Pharaoh and technically where slaves. Torah knows about this and tells us that Joseph brought this about by forcing the people to sell themselves to Pharaoh in the seven meager years. Pharaoh is asked to let our people go, in a sense to serve the Eternal one instead. I suppose that is the basis under the Jewish way to look at slavery. A Jewish slave should be free enough to personally hold mitzvoth.

I respond:

My original comment was directed to the understanding of slavery in the Western world.