Yevamot – Brother’s Wife – The Mind of Dan Perlman

Yevamot – “Brother’s Wife” – Clan Survival

Strap in for what I expect is going to be a bumpy ride. Judaism of two millennia ago was a very patriarchal society. I expect a 393-page book (our next thirteen months planned out) related to women is going to be at odds with modern attitudes. We jump into the deep end with the first tractate being the topic of levirate marriage, the obligation for a man to marry his brother’s widow, if she’s childless. The intent being both to give the woman a continued place within the family clan, and also to continue the clan’s lineage. If she already has children, those are presumed secured. A common practice in various world cultures, even today, though within Judaism, it’s rarely practiced anymore, and is actually banned in Israel.
3/9/22, Chapter 1, Page 2 – In its usual bizarre approach to a topic, the Talmud doesn’t start with defining Yibbum, the levirate marriage obligation, but launches with a litany of exemptions from the it. Specifically, women who are forbidden to marry their dead husband’s brother because of a close familial relationship (such as being a niece, or aunt). Fifteen exemptions are acknowledged, though not detailed here. Also noted, an exemption for a woman who had been forced into being a child bride against her will.
3/10/22, Page 3 – Continuing with exemptions, the Talmud takes a closer look at six of the fifteen women for whom yibbum is forbidden. Not surprising that these are also relationships which are already forbidden, on penalty of death by fire, in Leviticus. One’s own mother, daughter, or granddaughter; a woman in direct lineage with a woman with whom the brother is already in a relationship – her mother or daughter or granddaughter. The rabbis note that while only those six are listed, it should extend to further generations in either direction.
3/11/22, Page 4 – Homiletical interpretation using juxtaposition. Now there’s a phrase I never would have thought to utter. In this case, it’s the preaching of rabbis, justifying a new rule based on two seemingly unrelated biblical passages simply because they occur one after the other. Numerous examples are given, like where a punishment is decreed for one biblical prohibition, it gets applied to the prohibitions before and after it, even if not stated. Not all the rabbis are onboard with this approach, and those who are, often disagree on the interpretations.
3/12/22, Page 5 – Since there’s apparently an entire book devoted to becoming a Nazirite coming up next year in this study, I’m not going to delve into it now. Suffice it to say that my twice weekly shaving of my head, and every other day shaving of my facial hair, disqualify me from becoming one, whatever they are. How this relates to women and levirate marriage I have no idea, other than that the whole shaving of heads prohibition applies to men only. I’ll wait for next year to find out if bald women can become Nazirites.
3/13/22, Page 6 – In some cases in reading the Talmud we’ve seen one mitzvah trump another, but we’re going up against the big gun here, “keeping the Sabbath”. In quick succession, the Talmud dismisses “honor your parents” and “build the Temple” as overriding reasons to work on the Sabbath. Then, a dark pivot. Can the religious court order a death penalty by fire to be carried out on the Sabbath? Ignoring “why don’t they just do it the next day?”, the rabbis dump this one too, not because, as is first proposed, “lighting a fire” is prohibited on the Sabbath, because the fire might already be lit, but because “cooking” is prohibited. Yes, they went there.
3/14/22, Page 7 – After several days of exploring the making of rules via juxtaposition, generalization, specialization, and how to resolve conflicting obligations, we come back to levirate marriage. Normally, sleeping with your brother’s wife is forbidden, but becomes obligatory if he dies and leaves her childless. The question is raised, what about all other forbidden sexual relationships the Torah spells out? Are there circumstances that make those permissible? The general leaning seems to be “no”, but clearly this line of discussion is going to continue.
3/15/22, Page 8 – Judaism has a proscription against rape, even marital rape. Today’s passage takes a dark turn when it offers that in certain cases of levirate marriage, where your brother’s widow doesn’t want to marry you, rather than going through halitzah, the ceremonial refusal of levirate marriage, it’s okay for you to rape her. The justification is basically: if you have sex with her, you can declare her your wife, then divorce her, thus granting her the status of being a free woman. Beyond how screwed up and against the rules this is, no explanation is given for why not simply go through the halitzah ceremony.
3/16/22, Page 9 – Setting aside a continuing discussion about various situations where rape was involved, which gets stupidly complicated given a very different societal attitude two millennia ago, we jump to… a newborn. Specifically, a newborn younger brother, i.e., a brother who was born after his older brother died childless. Is he, upon arrival in the world, obligated to marry his older brother’s widow (presumably upon reaching age 13)? After much discussion, the decision is “no”, because he never co-existed with his brother, he does not.
3/17/22, Page 10 – The focus being given to rape in these few pages of the tractate are, from a modern perspective, horrific. Apparently it was, despite prohibitions, a more common and open occurrence, particularly with regard to second wives, servants, and brother’s or son’s wives. While several of the more enlightened rabbis feel that no brother should be obligated to marry a deceased brother’s wife who is the offspring of a rape by one or another relative (father, another brother, uncle…), not all agree, and the intricacy of the connections being debated is overwhelming.
3/18/22, Page 11 – We haven’t seen much discussion of halitzah, the ceremony for rejecting levirate marriage, yet. It’s an odd ritual involving a shoe, responsive reading, and spitting. In modern times, it’s the norm in observant families, as opposed to levirate marriage, but in ancient times, it was the exception. The reason, seen on today’s page, returns to the “being part of the clan” basis for levirate marriage. A woman who has been “released” via halitzah has fewer options for remarriage, and doing so puts her in a detrimental position in life.
3/19/22, Page 12 – The levirate marriage obligation is predicated on the deceased brother and his widow being childless when he died. The intention being for the brother-in-law to have children with her and continue the family lineage, on behalf of his brother. Naturally, situations arise where a woman is physiologically incapable of having children. The question is, did the deceased brother know that before or after he married her? If before, then no children were planned, and there is no levirate marriage obligation for his brothers.
3/20/22, Page 13 – Rabbi Zevd opines that a woman who has had children has obviously reached puberty, and is… just as obviously, capable of having children. I mean, after all, she’s just done so. But, it is asked, what about if she’s been examined and has no hair “down there” – after all, isn’t that the proof of having reached puberty? These guys clearly have never heard of a Brazilian wax, let alone know anything about female physiology.
3/21/22, Page 14 – Two rival schools that we’ve met before on these pages, Hillel and Shammai, have different interpretations of some of the prohibitions discussed on the previous pages in this tractate. When practicing levirate marriage within their own groups, among their own followers, they follow their own particular interpretations. But when marrying cross-clan, to each other’s communities, they accept the interpretations and rulings of the clan that the woman is from rather than imposing the man’s point of view on her and her family’s “lived experience”. Almost, vaguely, enlightened, in context.
3/22/22, Page 15 – While officially levirate marriage is intended to give a recent widow some continuity of home and family, the way it’s been discussed has been very impersonal. When it has gotten personal, it’s been about the man in the situation and how he’d react or be seen by the community. For just a beat, a few paragraphs, the rabbis pause to consider the impact on and the feelings of the woman involved. Given that this tractate is supposed to be about women, it’s a pleasant, if likely fleeting, shift.
3/23/22, Page 16 – For years I maintained a page of my namesakes on my personal website, and I was, and am, in reasonably regular contact with several of them. I often get random stuff from strangers intended for one or another of them – I get legal documents intended for a NYC lawyer, and commentary about my TV show intended for a NYC comedian. Today’s passage reminds us to not simply react reflexively when we hear that “so and so said X”, but to both confirm who said it, and what they actually said. Seems the rabbinic council predicted the rise of the social media rumor mill and castigation two millennia ago.
3/24/22, Chapter 2, Page 17 – Within traditional Judaism, I’ve always learned that intermarriage is forbidden, and there’s a general presumption that the children of an interfaith marriage are sort of damned for all eternity. When the topic is touched upon here at the start of a new chapter, however, a different thought line is explored. In short, if the mother is Jewish, the child is too, and if the mother is not, neither is the child. No castigation nor condemnation mentioned. In fact, the rabbis seem to regard it as somewhat commonplace. Of course, so was polygamy, so the Jewish lineage was assumed to continue.
3/25/22, Page 18 – Levirate marriage takes place in three steps – one brother dies, creating the obligation; the surviving brother and widow accept the obligation in a betrothal; and, they get married. What’s not specified, it seems, is a time period, and today’s page touches on this – a younger brother who isn’t yet of age to marry, a brother who is absent, a brother who is not mentally capable – all leading to being stuck at step one. Apparently, there’s an out. Wait for the widow to die, and then the brother is released from all obligations. The widow too, I guess.
3/26/22, Page 19 – The rabbis now flip things around, in another meandering dive into the rabbit hole. “What if?”, they ask, there are three brothers, but the youngest isn’t born until after the eldest dies, and the middle brother has taken on the obligation, but then, after the third brother is born, he himself dies, does the third brother become obligated to marry not only the second brother’s “regular” wives, but also his levirate wife, given that she was also the first brother’s wife, whom he normally wouldn’t be permitted to marry? “It depends” is about as solid of an answer as we get.
3/27/22, Page 20 – Well, it’s about time we turn to the men, albeit we don’t have fifteen classes of prohibited ones enumerated. It’s short and simple, and fits the official reason for levirate marriage – continuation of the lineage on behalf of one’s deceased brother. If a man has permanent injury or loss of either testicles or penis, or is too elderly or infirm to have succesful intercourse, there’s no levirate marriage obligation for either him or his brother’s widow, as the opportunity for procreation doesn’t exist.
3/28/22, Page 21 – The fifteen classes of “forbidden” women for “relations” (wink, wink) are spelled out in Leviticus. The rabbis go further, and provide safeguards against potential impropriety in this arena, much like many of their other rulings (the “fence around the Torah” principle we’ve seen in past passages). They add in a list of other close relatives that were not in Leviticus: grandmothers, great aunts, daughters and wives of stepchildren or half-siblings. It seems obvious to us in modern times, but in a time when people were living in small, close-knit clans, it likely wasn’t.
3/29/22, Page 22 – First, today, a rabbinic extension of forbidden relationships into great-granddaughters and great-grandnieces, great-grandmothers and great-grandaunts. And then we turn to mamzers. Usually people think a mamzer is what we would call a bastard, but that’s not what it means, because not all children born out of wedlock are mamzers. The term refers to a child born from a forbidden relation, i.e., all the various connections this tractate addresses. We do learn, however, that a paternally related mamzer is, for levirate marriage obligations, your brother in all respects.
3/30/22, Page 23 – In Jewish tradition, breaking off an engagement requires the equivalent of a divorce. The sages consider a man who is engaged to one of two sisters, but doesn’t know which one (apparently, it happens). He must give both a divorce, and start over, clean slate. In context, if he dies before doing so, his brother gives a halitzah, dissolving the levirate marriage obligation, to both of them. The reason given is that one’s sister-in-law is a forbidden relationship, so he might be marrying the forbidden one.
3/31/22, Page 24 – Two topics today. The firstborn son acquires the levirate marriage obligation on the death of any of his brothers. If he declines the marriage, the obligation falls on all of the other brothers, with no specified order, as, beyond the firstborn, the others are fungible, and their order of birth irrelevant. As a firstborn myself, this seems eminently logical. Second, if a man commits adultery with a married woman, and she divorces from her husband and marries him, the rabbis nullify the second marriage and order a divorce, because… forbidden relationship.
4/1/22, Page 25 – In early pages of the Talmud I noted that it was clear that while gay sex was officially prohibited, it was just as clear that everyone knew it was going on, and there were even passages detailing how to approach it. In a convoluted argument, the learned folk decide that if a man claims he’s been sodomized against his will, he is to be believed (metoo!) and his rapist is to be punished. But if a man says he was a willing participant it makes him a wicked person, and a wicked person’s testimony isn’t to be believed, plus, one can’t testify against oneself, so therefore, the entire thing is dismissed for lack of a credible witness.
4/2/22, Page 26 – If a woman has had two husbands, both of whom died under suspicious circumstances, where she’s the prime suspect in their deaths, the rabbis decide that she may be considered as a murderer. Not for criminal charges or anything, just in terms of her marital eligibility status. The punishment? She’s not allowed to marry a third time. Just in case, you know?
4/3/22, Chapter 3, Page 27 – Three or more brothers. Two of whom are each married to women, be they sisters or other pairs of women who an individual man would be forbidden from being married to both. Those two brothers die. The remaining brother(s) now have an obligation to marry both women, but also are forbidden from marrying both. And no, you can’t just divvy them up between remaining brothers. It’s quite the lively rabbinical discussion – do the brothers perform a double halitzah, effectively divorcing both women, or just one, and then marry the other? Philosophical conundrums with real world implications.
4/4/22, Page 28 – What if, in yesterday’s situation, one or more of the remaining brothers consummated the levirate marriage that they weren’t supposed to? Are they required to divorce, or are they allowed to remain married? The arguments rage back and forth, but the upshot, as best I can tell is that most, if not all, of the arguments throughout the last two dozen plus pages are rabbis trying to slap-down a bunch of men looking for ways to sleep with women that they’re forbidden from sleeping with.
4/5/22, Page 29 – To this point the sages have talked about levirate marriage as a way of continuing the family lineage and not leaving a widow adrift. Today the heart of their arguments is laid bare. The discussion is whether or not a woman becomes a “full-fledged acquisition” or just a potential one, of a man upon betrothal. Or does full-on ownership require consummation of the marriage, i.e., intercourse? They even include instructions for delivery of the acquisition to the wedding canopy.
4/6/22, Page 30 – Having ground through various imagined scenarios with four and three brothers and two sisters and rival wives, we arrive at two different situations that arrive at the same conclusion. Except, as one sage timidly opines, the cases are actually identical, as are the decisions. Why, he asks, are we beating a dead horse here on ridiculous situations that are the same? Because, the answer comes, our arguments to get there were different, which just proves we’re right. Well, no, but nice try.
4/7/22, Page 31 – A brother’s widow is obligated to either marry another brother or perform the halitza ceremony, negating the obligation. An interesting question is raised in regard to the classes of “forbidden woman” in this tractate. Why does a forbidden woman have to perform a halitza ceremony? Doing so implies the option of levirate marriage, which is forbidden, so therefore the ceremony is moot. Talk about a bunch of confounded sages scrambling to answer that one.
4/8/22, Page 32 – Two wrongs may not make a right, but do they require two punishments? The debate is shoehorned into the context of this tractate – a case of a consummated relationship forbidden to two people on more than one basis. The argument comes down to, do they have to get a double divorce, or does one divorce cover both violations. In larger scope the debate is over whether lack of consequences mean something isn’t wrong.
4/9/22, Page 33 – The discussion over two wrongs and their punishment continues. We switch to someone eating something forbidden to them by two different prohibitions. But my eye catches a gem. Unblemished priests in the Temple are exempt and can eat non-kosher meat. Of course it’s the Temple priests again, getting away with things us ordinary mortals can’t. How far does this non-kosher exemption go? This is the second case of exemption from kosher laws we’ve seen so far in the Talmud (pregnant women, Yoma 82).
4/10/22, Page 34 – It’s Sex Day in Yevamot! A woman can’t become pregnant her first time having intercourse, so if she does, the man must have continued until he orgasmed twice. If it’s a forbidden relationship, should punishment relate to the single act of intercourse, or multiply for each thrust? Having intercourse while nursing a baby could result in another pregnancy, terminating milk production, and killing the newborn. So for 24 months after a baby is born, a couple should only have manual, oral, or anal sex, or practice withdrawing before orgasm. So much for those being considered against the Bible… they’re actually mandated!
4/11/22, Chapter 4, Page 35 -The sages turn their attention to a recent widow who turns out to be pregnant, but after her deceased husband’s brother either marries her or divorces her, and then whether or not she miscarries. If she carries to term, then her husband didn’t die childless, and then the levirate marriage was prohibited, so either they get divorced or annulled, or the halitzah was unnecessary. If she miscarries, then the levirate marriage was performed before she was officially childless, and they have to have sex all over again, or, the divorce was, or wasn’t, yet valid and may, or may not, have to be done again. I need an options chart.
4/12/22, Page 36 – It’s worth noting that in a society that allowed for men to have not just their primary wife, but “rival wives”, that questions of levirate marriage, whether it’s consummate or not, or whether it’s rejected and a halitzah is performed to negate the obligation, and when those happen, affect more than just the widow and the obligated brother. Until the widow’s status is finalized in new marriage, in divorce, in childbirth, all the things we’ve been reading about, all of the rival wives’ lives are put on hold – they cannot remarry until her status is resolved.
4/13/22, Page 37 – Priests, Levites, Israelites, halallim (priests whose lineage is disqualified), converts, freed slaves, mamzerim (born from a forbidden relationship), Gibeonites (a cursed group of former Levites), shetukei (literally, investigated individuals, those whose father is unknown), and foundlings. The purpose of this categorical listing? It’s hierarchical, and one is only permitted to marry within their own class, or one class above or below. No Cinderella story lines permitted.
4/14/22, Page 38 – In the patriarchal society of the time, women had very few property rights. Through most of their life, anything they considered their own possessions were at least in part controlled by either their father, or after betrothal, their husband (and yes, betrothal, which at the time was a full year before the actual marriage). However, during the widow-hood period we’ve been talking about, until the designated brother proceeds with either betrothal or rejection, all her property is hers to do with as she wishes.
4/15/22, Page 39 – All of the previous passages wind us up here… is a levirate marriage equal to the original marriage? The answer is contentious, and it’s driven in large part by inheritance laws. If it’s equal, then the new husband take control of the widow’s property and inheritance on her death goes to his family. If not equal, then while he may have some say in the management of her property, it becomes the inheritance of her family on her death. The equal and non-equal camps were, and are still, split on the issue.
4/16/22, Page 40 – A halitzah, the refection of levirate marriage ceremony, creates a relationship between the widow and the brother of basically being divorced. It has the consequence of bringing in all those forbidden relationships from earlier in terms of who he or she can marry in the future. Or does it? The rabbis explore exactly which relationships are forbidden, in the end concluding that “what a mishnah (rule) says is what we follow, we don’t add anything to it”. Since when? The entire Talmud is filled with additions to mishnahs – the entire “fence around the Torah” concept.
4/17/22, Page 41 – A widow must wait three months before being betrothed, to see if she might be pregnant by her deceased husband. Many of the rabbis wanted to extend that to any woman, widow or not, from the time a man starts dating her, he can’t ask her to marry him for at least three months, because, she might be pregnant from a past relationship. There’s an unspoken assumption that once a man starts dating a woman, she will have no “relations” with anyone else. These guys clearly aren’t up on their telenovelas.
4/18/22, Page 42 – For interfaith or non-Jewish couples… if one or both members convert to Judaism after they are married (so that both are Jewish), they wait three months and then get married again in a Jewish ceremony. Why? To see if she’s pregnant, and whether the baby was “conceived in sanctity”, determining whether the child is Jewish or has to convert. Also, as intercourse is a requirement for consummation of a marriage, no married woman (nor man, though not mentioned) is a virgin. So, umm, either Joseph and Mary weren’t actually married, or Jesus’ mom wasn’t Virgin.
4/19/22, Page 43 – Given my hairline, I don’t spend much time considering combs. So a page dedicated to how many teeth a comb can be missing and in what arrangement, before it is no longer considered a comb strikes me as silly. Even if it’s turned into a comparison of how many days out of the three month waiting period for betrothal a widow can skip counting before it’s no longer considered three months. No real reason is given for why you’d skip counting days, other than whether to include the day of her husband’s death and the day of the betrothal.
4/20/22, Page 44 – In the midst of a discussion about which and how many brothers’ widows one remaining brother can marry, it’s noted that as a Torah scholar is required to perform intercourse with (one of) his wives once a week, he should marry no more than four, ensuring that each gets a conjugal visit once a month. Does anything else need be said?
4/21/22, Page 45 – There was an expression, “A camel in Medes [Kurdish country at the time] can dance upon a small space that holds only a single kav [1.2 liters] of produce.” However, it is noted, if you go to Medes, you’d not find camels able to dance in such a small space, nor, likely, dancing camels at all. The intent of the expression is to say, “the validity of your statement becomes obvious when tested.” Particularly used when the person is unwilling to have their ideas, statements, beliefs tested.
4/22/22, Page 46 – Ritual immersion is a big deal in Judaism. It’s part of preparation for numerous celebrations and rituals. It’s a part of coming of age, the bar mitzvah. It’s part of wedding prep. It’s the ultimate step in conversion to Judaism, after circumcision. It’s also both the ultimate step in formalizing the bond of a slave to master, and the freeing of a slave. In fact, if, at the start of ritual immersion, a circumcised slave announces he’s freeing himself before the new owner announces his slavery, he becomes free. And God mandates circumcising your slaves before immersion… almost like (s)he wanted to open that opportunity.
4/23/22, Page 47 – “Don’t you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?” You’d think that in nearly 2000 years, we’d have made some progress there.
4/24/22, Page 48 – A slave, a son of a slave, a gentile. None can be circumcised against their will. As it is a requirement in an observant household that all the boys and men who live there be circumcised, the rabbis debate how long an uncircumcised male can live in your home. For a gentile houseguest, this isn’t an issue, unless you’re renting a room to someone, it’s unlikely they’ll stay long-term. For a slave or child of a slave, it becomes an issue, and while the rabbis disagree (varying from a few days to as long as a year) how long is too long, the upshot is, if the slave continues to refuse, he must be resold to a gentile.
4/25/22, Page 49 – Once again, we’re off on tangents in mid-tractate, and it will be interesting to see how it all ends up back together. Some people will sin, will commit heresy, will be evil, will leave the fold (in this case, Judaism) no matter what. It’s going to happen. Although Judaism had a more than two millennia headstart on Christianity and Islam, both have eclipsed it in numbers of adherents by massive ratios. Perhaps, one could muse, we will eventually whittle our way down to 36, the mystical number of righteous beings who will save the world.
4/26/22, Chapter 5, Page 50 – If the brother who died had more than one wife, we know that there’s a levirate marriage obligation for his principle wife and surviving brother, but what about his other wives? Basically it comes down to that whatever decision is made in regard to the first wife, affects the others the same way – they either are all released, or are all remarried. Today’s discussion comes down to a what if the brother wants to marry one of the other wives, but not the first wife. It’s convoluted, to say the least.
4/27/22, Page 51 – The discussion today is over minor brothers who are bound by the levirate marriage obligation. Apparently, as of age 9 years and 1 day, a boy was considered ready not only for marriage, but also for intercourse, the performance of which would seal the betrothal. The argument is over whether if two brothers of that age each have intercourse with the widow, whose marriage bond takes precedence, or do they cancel each other out? It’s not resolved.
4/28/22, Page 52 – Reasons for getting flogged (presumably as punishment, as opposed to some sort of 50 Shades fantasy): having sex with your brother’s widow before completing the betrothal ceremony, because it’s out of proper order; having the betrothal ceremony in the marketplace because it’s immodest; moving into your soon to be father-in-law’s house, because the only conceivable reason you’d do so is to have sex with your future mother-in-law. What was wrong with these people?
4/29/22, Page 53 – When it comes to levirate marriage, whichever action is taken first overrides subsequent actions. So, if you perform halitza, the rejection of the betrothal, even if you have sex together afterwards, you can’t change your mind and get married. And if you announce the betrothal, and/or have intercourse first, you can’t then perform the halitza and negate that. Actions and words have consequences.
4/30/22, Chapter 6, Page 54 – I’m almost laughing too hard to write this one, as the rabbis discuss the various consequences for coerced or unintentional sexual acts that include such gems as a man intending to stick his penis in a hole in the wall but finding a vagina on the other side, or accidentally falling off a roof and landing on a woman who is lying down below, with precise, albeit unintentional, aim. My favorite is the discussion of whether pre-intercourse activities, i.e., foreplay, with another man or an animal, carry the same penalties as completing the act, or whether they’re considered innocuous.
5/1/22, Page 55 – Is the “initial stage of intercourse” a kiss, oral sex, or just putting the tip in? And if you do one of those things with a woman who is forbidden to you for full on intercourse, like, say, your sister, your mother, your daughter, your aunt… is that also forbidden? The fact that the latter questions even come up says way too much about how societal mores operated “back in the day”.
5/2/22, Page 56 – There were privileges to marrying a priest, among them being able to eat all the lovely foods that were left in offering at the Temple. We’ve seen in the past that there were various rules about qualifying for the priesthood, as well as who could marry a priest. What happens to the woman’s privileges if her husband loses his priestly status and privileges? Not a surprise, she loses hers too… unless they’ve had intercourse and she’s become pregnant, she only loses them until she bears his son. No comment is made on if the infant is a daughter.
5/3/22, Page 57 – Today’s page discusses the validity of betrothal of child brides, where the girl must be at least three years and one day old. I understand the betrothal idea, a family promising a child to another family, with the intent of marriage happening years in the future. Especially in a time where people only lived to an average age in their early twenties. But this discussion includes the difficult to read about consummation of marriage via ceremony, payment, and/or, even intercourse, at that same age of three years and one day.
5/4/22, Page 58 – Once betrothed, even though the marriage has not been consummated by either ceremony, payment, or intercourse, a woman is to behave as if married, and is to be treated as if. No last minute sowing of wild oats, or actions that might suggest she is doing so. Of course, the same does not appear to apply to the betrothed man.
5/5/22, Page 59 – The Temple’s high priest had a lot of restrictions on who he could marry. In particular, his wife to be had to be a virgin. But what constitutes a virgin? Today’s page does a deep dive into whether oral or anal sex constitute losing one’s virginity, and also on whether the whole discussion is altered if the intercourse – vaginal, oral, or anal, was with an animal, rather than a man. You can’t say these guys don’t discuss contentious issues.
5/6/22, Page 60 – How to test if a girl or woman is a virgin. Sit her, naked, on a wine barrel. As we all apparently know, the interior workings of the female reproductive system is sealed tightly until she’s been penetrated by a man. If she’s not a virgin, the wine vapors will pass through the now unsealed reproductive system, and right up to her mouth and nose, and her breath will smell like wine. If it doesn’t smell like wine, then she’s still sealed up tight. Glad we cleared that up.
5/7/22, Page 61 – A sexually underdeveloped boy is exempt from the levirate marriage obligation. A sexually underdeveloped girl is also exempt. However, the latter raises the question of how a girl who hasn’t yet developed would be in the position of being a widow in the first place. Simply being betrothed, promised, wouldn’t count, since the marriage hasn’t been consummated. At least at this point, that hasn’t yet been addressed.
5/8/22, Page 62 – One boy, two boys, one boy and one girl, two boys and two girls. How many kids must one man have in order to fulfill the commandment to be fruitful and multiply? Do note that there are no options for just girls, nor is it apparently important that a woman be fruitful and multiply, and, there’s a note towards the end of the page today that offspring, boys or girls, also have to be fertile and provide grandchildren on the same schema.
5/9/22, Page 63 – Way back we’ve seen examples where one is exempt from performing a mitzvah if they are already actively engaged in another mitzvah. In regard to marriage and procreation, the question arises, what of someone who chooses not to get married and/or not to have children, because they are dedicated to another mitzvah, whatever it might be? As usual there is disagreement, with some ranking the importance of procreation in particular, but others feel, as one put it, that there are others to fulfill that, while he or she fulfills their calling.
5/10/22, Page 64 – What happens if a couple does not conceive a child, and they’re actually trying? The sages decide on a ten year maximum trying period. If, after ten years, a man’s wife hasn’t conceived, he has to get another wife – either divorcing the first wife and paying back her marriage contract (after all, it might be him who’s infertile, not her), or simply bringing in a second wife and starting over. In the case of divorce, the woman may remarry, and the ten year conception period starts over for her and her new husband.
5/11/22, Page 65 – If a woman doesn’t conceive with three sequential husbands, it can be said of her that she is prone to infertility. If a woman miscarries three sequential times, it can be said of her that she is prone to miscarriages. And on what do we base this deduction? Why, obviously because it’s the same situation as, if an ox attacks three people sequentially, it can be said that it is prone to attack people. Sherlock Holmes, these guys were not.
5/12/22, Chapter 7, Page 66 – Today’s page broaches the subject of a woman’s property when she marries. It covers two classes, that which remains her sole possession, even if her husband is allowed to either gain benefit from it, or might be required to maintain it (and we’re talking everything from clothing and jewelry to slaves); and that which becomes their joint property. Although we didn’t get there yet, I’m guessing this will lead into our erstwhile brother’s widow and what she owns or doesn’t when it comes to levirate marriage with a surviving brother.
5/13/22, Page 67 – In Jewish tradition, and germane to today’s arguments about abortion, a baby is not considered a person until they draw their first breath. Some go further, requiring that the baby survive to thirty days. This makes today’s discussion about potential priestly inheritance rights of a priest’s wife’s fetus quite strange, as, statistically speaking, only half of the fetuses will be male, of those a good number will not survive (we’re talking two millennia ago), and of those, at most a handful will be “unblemished” and able to become priests.
5/14/22, Page 68 – Basically, if I were to boil down the various wanderings of today’s page, a woman who has had sex with any man or boy who would be unfit to be a priest, disqualifies her from marrying a priest, even for levirate marriage purposes.
5/15/22, Page 69 – The daughter of a priest is entitled to the family benefits… unless she marries a non-priest. However, if he then dies, she can have her privileges restored, but only after waiting forty days after his death (and then there’s a whole ceremony). Why forty days? Because it remains to be seen if she is pregnant by her now deceased husband, as a child by that husband permanently disqualifies her from a return to her family’s priestly status.
5/16/22, Chapter 8, Page 70 – If a priest becomes disqualified as a priest because of an injury or illness and therefore can no longer fulfill his priestly duties, he loses his Temple privileges. However, his wife and children do not lose their access to those privileges.
5/17/22, Page 71 – Continuing on priestly disqualifications, the subject of discovering that a priest is uncircumcised arises. This mystifies me a bit, since one of the things that was a prerequisite for priesthood, if I’m not mistaken, was circumcision. If they didn’t check when he entered the priesthood, what are they doing checking years later? And who’s doing the checking?
5/18/22, Page 72 – Reasons a priest might be uncircumcised 101. He had two foreskins and only one was removed. Not enough of his foreskin was removed so it appears like he’s uncircumcised. They’re a hermaphrodite and has both male and female genitalia (there seems some confusion as to why they still couldn’t have been circumcised). They’re a tumtum, i.e., no external sexual organs. He was circumcised as a non-Jew, and converted later. The upshot still is, he either has to be circumcised, or have a second one, in order to partake of priestly privileges.
5/19/22, Page 73 – The punishment for partaking of the food set aside for priestly privileges while you’re in an impure state is flogging. That includes, as is pointed out on today’s page, someone who is in acute mourning. Because yeah, nothing is better for improving your mental well-being than being beaten into unconsciousness with a stick for having a snack while you’re mourning the loss of a close family member or longtime friend.
5/20/22, Page 74 – In past tractates, the rabbis have been hypercritical of the temple priests. While they’ve acknowledged their important functions and personal sacrifices, they’ve also, more or less, noted that the priests tend to be prissy, self-indulgent, entitled elites who think they’re better than everyone else because of their stringencies around purity. I find myself musing on this chapter as the rabbis seem to bend over backwards to bolster those stringencies, exclusivities, and entitlements.
5/21/22, Page 75 – Among the various things that cause ritual impurity is giving birth. In and of itself, I find that bizarre – sure there’s some physical impurity, to be cleaned up – but why ritual impurity? It would seem to me that childbirth ought to be exalted. Compounding this is a note (that I’m sure elsewhere in the Talmud we’ll get to in more detail) about the length of impurity. In regard to sacred privileges, 40 days after giving birth to a boy, 80 days if a girl. In regard to sexual relations, 33 days if a boy, 66 days if a girl. Just give that a minute to sink in.
5/22/22, Page 76 – Guys, you may want to avert your eyes here. So, if a man’s “member” has been punctured and then healed over and he is unable to ejaculate, obviously, you lay him down, place a loaf of warm barley bread on his butt, and if that makes him cum, all is well in the world. If it doesn’t, you have to reopen the wound using the sharp edge of a grain of barley, then coat it with fat, and place a large biting ant into the opening. After it bites, you cut its head off, and if you did it all right, the man’s penis will heal properly.
5/23/22, Page 77 – Intermarriage. It’s been a bone of contention for every religion throughout history. Jewish tradition generally doesn’t allow it, unless the person is in the process of, or has recently converted to, Judaism. But, of course, the priestly class is held to a higher standard, and a priest marrying a convert directly is frowned upon – the general rule expressed is, “not until they’re third generation converts”. Appearances’ sake and all that, you know?
5/24/22, Page 78 – There are some who think that Judaism forbids remarrying your ex-wife or ex-husband. That’s not the case. It’s only the case if, after divorcing, they have remarried someone else and then gotten divorced again or been widowed. It is, according to Jewish law, not just an abomination and abhorrent to God, but a form of adultery (a weird analogy to spouse swapping is given), and therefore punishable by death. Yet another thing that some holier than thou folk have been known to do while condemning other folk for their behavior.
5/25/22, Page 79 – It somehow seems fitting this morning after the Uvalde shooting to read a tangential story on today’s Talmud page of (not yet King) David doing the right thing even though it meant violating the letter of the Torah. The conclusion of the sages and rabbis – it’s better, and more important, to do something that sanctifies the true intent of Heaven, i.e., God, than it is to follow the letter of the law, even if that law was written by God.
5/26/22, Page 80 – Signs of a man being a eunuch: his urine doesn’t arch or foam when he pees; delayed pubic or beard hair growth; his semen doesn’t congeal; his skin doesn’t steam when he takes a hot bath; his voice is high pitched. Being a eunuch means never being fit. The cause of… eunuch-hood is his mother delaying baking the daily bread until mid-day rather than first thing, and also, she clearly must have drunk a lot of strong beer. More medical wisdom from the rabbinic council.
5/27/22, Page 81 – Most ritually pure food items, when mixed in with impure items, become impure themselves. It’s a logical conclusion when talking about ritual purity, much of which is often based on physical contact. But the rabbis have picked out seven items, which, no matter what they are mixed with, retain their ritual purity: Perekh nuts, Badan pomegranates, sealed casks of wine, beet greens, cabbage stalks, Grecian gourds, and homemade bread. Sounds like a loophole created by someone who didn’t want to give up eating their favorites.
5/28/22, Page 82 – We’ve headed down a path lined with eunuchs, hermaphrodites, and tumtums (indeterminate gender). Today we’re covering whether anal or vaginal sex with a hermaphrodite constitutes homosexual or heterosexual intercourse. Especially in the case of a hermaphrodite married to either a man or woman. This generates a whole debate over straight, gay, or lesbian marital sex, with the rabbis leaning towards considering hermaphrodites to be “mostly guy”, except when they’re not. Sound familiar?
5/29/22, Page 83 – One could do a deep-dive into the whole arena of biological, psychological, and spiritual gender identity as defined in Jewish tradition. Interestingly, the sacred texts, be they part of the Torah or the Talmud, not only allow for, but often celebrate gender fluidity or intersex identities. Most of the religious negative reaction to these concepts seems related to questions that the Sages were dealing with two millennia ago – prohibitions on certain sexual acts, rather than identities.
5/30/22, Chapter 9, Page 84 – There’s been a lot of discussion of special cases in levirate marriage situations, be it lineage, injury, birth defect, or mixed/unclear gender situations. This chapter starts with a meandering discussion about unfitness for levirate marriage. At the beginning of this tractate, it was made clear that in cases where the marriage can’t be consummated, they just issue a halitzah, and move on with their lives. Color me confused as to why they don’t just do that in these situations too.
5/31/22, Page 85 – Back on page 37 of this tractate was a detailed hierarchy of a caste system in use at the time to determine appropriate marriage matches. It was phrased in a form of “one may” wed within one’s own caste or one caste above or below. The argument today is over whether that phrasing prohibits marrying outside of that range, because why would it have even been mentioned otherwise, or is simply general advice, but not binding. As usual, no ultimate decision is reached.
6/1/22, Page 86 – Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya, a wealthy member of the rabbinical council, liked the produce of a particular garden, and regularly went to receive his tithe from there. Rabbi Akiva, less wealthy, walled up the entrance to the garden, and opened a new one facing onto the neighboring cemetery. As Elazar was a temple priest, and prohibited from entering a cemetery, he could no longer go to his favorite garden. It’s not clear if Akiva was playing a practical joke, or just being an ass. There’s evidence in his history for both conclusions.
6/2/22, Page 87 – The primary purpose of levirate marriage was to continue the husband’s family line. It only applied if when he died, they didn’t have a son. Today, we consider the case where they had had a son, so his widow was free to remarry whomever she wished and did so. But… then the son from the first marriage dies. The sages actually argue over whether or not she is now subject to levirate marriage or halitza (ritual divorce) to continue her first husband’s family line (or be released from that obligation), and nullifying her second, and current marriage.
6/3/22, Chapter 10, Page 88 – A wife learns that her husband who is traveling abroad has died. She goes to the rabbinical court, has him declared legally dead and receives permission to remarry. Later, her first husband returns, not dead after all. Talmudic law castigates her for adultery, requiring her to leave her second husband, forbidding her to return to her first, live in shame, and declaring her children as bastards. If she hadn’t gone to the court for the legal declaration and just remarried, her second marriage is simply annulled and she can return to her first husband, all is forgiven. Bizarre.
6/4/22, Page 89 – We are compounding the bizarreness of yesterday’s page. The woman who thought her first husband dead, married a second, the first returned, not only has to leave both men for good, but they each have to issue formal divorces to her, and she has to leave behind all marital assets. This, assert the rabbis, is for her benefit, as it shows how much she was valued by both husbands, that they didn’t just toss her to the street without thought. Does anyone else get the feeling that the rabbi leading this conversation was either husband number one or two?
6/5/22, Page 90 – We’ve seen before that when two Torah mitzvahs are in conflict, it’s permissible to act on one and neglect the other, for example, violating the Sabbath to save someone’s life. Actively violating an obligation on its own carries punishment – and it varies with the mitzvah, yet the rabbis recognize that it’s sometimes necessary. The principle behind both situations is that it is acceptable to choose inaction and not fulfill a mitzvah, if the result is a positive one. It’s a fine line to walk.
6/6/22, Page 91 – Try this logic as regards the last three pages. If the supposedly widowed woman simply remarries, and then later finds out that her first husband is still alive, it annuls the second marriage, and is treated like either she was having an affair and/or that her second husband raped her. So, she’s allowed to return to her first husband, albeit in shame. If she went to the court for the declaration that her first husband was dead, the burden of proof was on her, it’s assumed she didn’t perform due diligence and/or was complicit in a conspiracy to have him declared dead, therefore she can’t return to him.
6/7/22, Page 92 – Let’s get more convoluted! Assume that her first husband and her only son by that husband were both overseas, and both died. If witnesses say her husband died first, then she still had a child when she became a widow and is not obligated for levirate marriage. If the child died first, then she was childless when she became a widow, and is obligated. If it later turns out that the witnesses got the order wrong, it becomes a mess of annulment or obligation, later children might suddenly be considered as born out of wedlock. Of course, it’s all her fault.
6/8/22, Page 93 – “A person can transfer to another an entity that has not yet come into the world.” This statement, by Rabbi Akiva, is the core of the debate on today’s page. Examples argued: crops being presold before they grow, flower, or fruit; food being promised before it is prepared; a slave being bought with the promise of manumission; and, of course, tying it to this tractate’s theme, the start of a debate on a man’s betrothal promise before a woman becomes a widow. Murder mystery fans, get ready….
6/9/22, Page 94 – It should come as no surprise that the inverse of the above pages engenders little debate. A wife goes overseas, is reported dead, the widower remarries, the first wife shows up… hey, men can have two wives, so, she just returns home and now he’s got two. Moving on.
6/10/22, Page 95 – This, in a somewhat vivid way, sums up a big part of the difference in status between men and women in Talmudic times: “…before marriage, a man is permitted to all the women in the world and a woman is permitted to all the men in the world. After they are betrothed, he renders her forbidden to all men, while she only renders him forbidden to her relatives.”
6/11/22, Page 96 – In ancient times a boy was considered an adult for legal purposes as of his bar mitzvah, at age 13, ostensibly the start of puberty, and all the previous rules in this tractate applied. But what about younger boys? It’s already been established that a prepubescent boy was not obligated to levirate marriage. But what if he had “relations” with his older brother’s widow? It wasn’t recommended, it was even frowned upon, but as of age nine years and one day, if he did have sex with her, then all the rest of the levirate marriage obligations and restrictions took effect.
6/12/22, Chapter 11, Page 97 – The test for puberty in these Talmudic times was whether or not an adolescent had grown two hairs “down there”. If a boy hadn’t grown two by age twenty, he was declared a eunuch; if a girl had not, she was declared, in essence, a barren spinster. Levirate marriage was off the table. Rava, the famed sage, opined that lack of sexual maturity was likely due to being too thin or too fat, thus leading to generations of mothers and grandmothers wailing over our dietary habits.
6/13/22, Page 98 – I think I followed this tortured passage…. Judaism is considered passed down through the maternal line. For purposes of marriage considerations, a child is always considered related to his or her maternal relatives. On the paternal side, if the father isn’t Jewish, or wasn’t Jewish at the time of conception and later converted, the child is not considered related to his or her paternal relatives in terms of prohibitions against marriage.
6/14/22, Page 99 – A series of convoluted potential relationships are cited that involve various children living under the same roof, with more than one mother and father involved, including servants and/or slaves. Basically, there’s an assumption that the lineage of any one child is suspect, and therefore in any levirate marriage situation, assume that the relationship is forbidden, err on the safe side and issue a ritual divorce, halitza, and everyone get on with their lives.
6/15/22, Page 100 – Out of the blue, the rabbis tackle the topic of contraception on the part of the woman. They determine there are three cases where a woman can use a “contraceptive resorbent”, to prevent pregnancy. The woman is a minor, or is already pregnant, or has recently given birth and is still nursing. In other situations, she’s to trust in God, who won’t let her get pregnant if it doesn’t fit the divine plan. Unfortunately, that last echoes (well, presages) some of the evangelical rhetoric we hear these days around abortion issues.
6/16/22, Chapter 12, Page 101 – The halitza ceremony, which negates going through with a levirate marriage basically involves the woman taking off one of the man’s shoes, putting it on the ground near him, spitting, and saying some words of divorce. Today’s page is a discussion about various odd situations with the shoe – what sort it needs to be, what size it needs to be, but in a bizarre case, if the man is an above-knee amputee, it is considered that he has no way to wear and take off the shoe, and therefore no way to proceed with the ceremony. No alternative is offered.
6/17/22, Page 102 – The rabbis continue the debate on what sort of shoe qualifies for the halitza ceremony. Must it be leather, or can it be cloth? Must it be a shoe, or is a sandal or slipper acceptable. What sort of laces or straps are permitted? Lost in this argument is a reference to wearing multiple pairs of shoes simultaneously, epitomized by Rav Yehuda, who apparently used to go to the market wearing five pairs of slippers, one over the other. No details given. Online searching yields no debate or question about this eccentricity.
6/18/22, Page 103 – I’m usually quite fond of Rabbi Yosei’s Talmudic interpretations, he tends to take a practical and supportive approach in his rulings. Befitting of the father of the first known drag-queen rabbi, Rose… err… Menachem. Today, color me disappointed. While the prevailing view is that a prosthetic foot counts as a shoe, can be worn on the Sabbath, allowing an amputee to get around easily, Yosei announces that a prosthetic is just a piece of wood, and wearing it violates the Sabbath prohibition on carrying objects.
6/19/22, Page 104 – This prejudice keeps recurring in the Talmud. Deaf-mutes lack the intellectual capacity to participate in a halitza ceremony. Unexplained and unquestioned, in the case of a widow being a deaf-mute, is that she was considered capable of getting married in the first place. Also, while it’s perfectly acceptable to use a shoe designed specifically for halitza use and not to be worn for walking, it is not acceptable to use a shoe that was designed to be worn in death. Apparently, death shoes, or burial slippers, are an actual thing.
6/20/22, Page 105 – It seems pretty straightforward, this halitza ceremony. The woman removes the man’s shoe (the correct sort of shoe, we’ve seen) and places it on the ground. She spits near it and then recites the official words of rejecting levirate marriage with him. There have to be three witnesses. It doesn’t seem confusing, but today is all about the validity of the ceremony if she spits before removing the shoe, or after reciting the verses. It’s not. Valid.
6/21/22, Page 106 – If a widow does not wish to marry her deceased husband’s brother, but the brother wants marry her, she is allowed to trick or coerce him into allowing her to remove his shoe and perform the halitza ceremony. Even if he understands what she’s doing, she can offer him a bribe to let the ceremony proceed, and then renege on the payment, because it was a deceit to begin with! While I’m not all that keen on taking advantage of the ignorant or stupid, it is kind of refreshing to see the Talmudic rabbis giving the woman the upper hand for a change.
6/22/22, Chapter 13, Page 107 – Adult women had little say in the way betrothals and marriages were arranged. Surprisingly, the rabbis gave far more power to minors. A girl, not yet an adult, had pretty much unlimited rights to refuse arranged betrothal and marriage. Though the rabbis differed in how and when those rights could be exercised, they came down squarely against child marriages that were against a girl’s will. I almost feel like we’re starting a trend of female agency here.
6/23/22, Page 108 – If a woman or girl who is betrothed to a man through a family arrangement goes off and marries someone else, that’s considered valid evidence of her lack of interest in and refusal to marry the betrothed man. Ya think?
6/24/22, Page 109 – A woman who is divorced, remarried, and then widowed is prohibited from levirate marriage. The logic of the rabbis is that she is like a girl who is married off by her father to a man who dies while she is still a minor. Since her father gave her away she is considered like an orphan in regard to levirate marriage. While she can return home to her father, he has used up his right to marry her off, and she’s still a minor, so she can’t enter into levirate marriage on her own say.
6/25/22, Page 110 – The rabbis are off on deaf-mute folk again. Not that deaf-mute folk are mentally incompetent, but they’re halakhically incompetent, i.e., they aren’t able to comply with the required rituals. Why? Because all halakha require some sort of verbal statement, and, they assert that without that the requirements of ritual are not met. Since forms of sign language have been around as long as spoken language, one has to assume that the real situation is that the rabbis are simply unable to understand a… signed statement.
6/26/22, Page 111 – As the rabbis explore various combinations of marriages and levirate marriage obligations that involve minor girls and/or deaf-mute girls or women, it’s all couched in terms of acquisition. That’s to say, the man “acquires” the woman through betrothal, intercourse, or purchase. Poignant given what’s going on in the news these past few days in particular. All that occurs to me is that, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
6/27/22, Page 112 – If a priest’s wife is raped, he is required to divorce her (spiritual purity on his part) and pay her the amount of the marriage contract (whatever alimony and property split was used back then). But only if there’s proof of the rape. Unless she’s trying to get out of her marriage with the priest, it doesn’t seem like there’s any impetus for her to tell him, or anyone else, about the assault. Suffer in silence and all that.
6/28/22, Chapter 14, Page 113 – The rabbis spend today’s page arguing over whether a man or woman who is deaf or deaf-mute or mute can enter into a legal marriage. The general consensus is that because of their lack of hearing or speech, it’s impossible to determine if they’re mentally competent or even intelligent. Signing was fairly rudimentary at the time, and deaf folk were often not privileged an education. Among the very Orthodox, this attitude continued even into the 1970s, when deaf-mute folk were often not allowed to convert to Judaism.
6/29/22, Page 114 – When we talk about a boy’s bar mitzvah and say he becomes a man at age 13, we’re not talking about him going out, getting a job, starting a family… it’s the point at which he becomes responsible for keeping the mitzvot, the adult rules. Until then, children are basically exempt from following them, acting more on instinct and need, and not considered mentally competent to make informed decisions. This tangent is, of course, used as a justification for why deaf-mute folk aren’t either.
6/30/22, Chapter 15, Page 115 – We move back to women who report that their husbands have died overseas, who want a divorce decree issued so they can remarry. Early on we learned that two credible witnesses to his death were required. Today’s page discusses an exception for wartime, where few, if any, witnesses might have survived. In that case, one witness is deemed sufficient. Having survived such a situation, what motive would the witness have to lie? There is, however, quite the discussion about the witness’ ability to accurately identify all those who died.
7/11/22, Page 116 – One of the things that the court looked for when a woman offered testimony that her husband has died is evidence of grief. The sages note, however, that a woman who was truly grieving would likely be disheveled and crying. At the same time, a woman who was not, but who was scheming, would know to simulate that. And further, people grieve in different ways. So, umm… they more or less go with what was probably the first case of… hashtag believe women.
7/2/22, Page 117 – Not everyone is a credible witness in the case of a woman claiming her husband has died, either supporting or contradicting her claim. Specifically, her mother-in-law, her mother-in-law’s daughters, rival wives, the wife/wives of the brother she would be obligated to marry, or that wife’s daughters. It’s apparently a given in the Talmud that wives and their husband’s female relatives hate each other, with a passion. That they might not isn’t even given consideration. This modern TV and movie trope goes way back….
7/3/22, Page 118 – Rival wives, as noted yesterday, are not allowed as credible witnesses in a claim of a husband’s death. This leads to the curious situation of one wife having been abroad with their husband. She returns alone, claiming that their husband has died on the trip. She applies for permission to remarry and receives it. BUT, since she isn’t deemed a credible witness for the death of her rival wife’s husband, the same man, the rival wife has no basis to request to remarry, and is still considered married to him. Schrödinger’s Husband!
7/4/22, Chapter 16, Page 119 – If two women are each married to one of two brothers, and both men die without having had children, neither of them can remarry until the court declares both men dead, with witnesses who are not either woman. Since they are sisters-in-law, and as we saw over the last two pages, presumed to hate each other, and therefore aren’t credible in regard to each others’ future, “statistically” they’re likely to be lying in order to not have the other one try to marry their respective husbands…. I swear, it’s a telenovela.
7/5/22, Page 120 – A witness to a man’s death must be sure of his identification. It’s not enough, apparently, to see a man cut open, torn apart by wild animals, crucified, or any other gruesome demise. One must actually see the body, no, the face, of the deceased, and wait for three days to be sure that he is, in fact, dead. Oh, and not just see the deceased’s face, but specifically, his nose, as that is “the best identifying feature”. Well if that isn’t a stereotype for our people, I don’t know what is.
7/6/22, Page 121 – Falling into a pond, a lake, an ocean, a river, falling into a vat of boiling water, or oil, falling into a furnace, falling into a pit, a pit with lions, or scorpions, or snakes. What are your odds of survival in each case? The sages debate the likelihood of demise in a variety of extreme situations, trying to come up with a list of ways you might survive, and therefore shouldn’t be declared dead if your body hasn’t been found and identified by credible witnesses, all in the proper timeframe of waiting for three, no more, no fewer, days.
7/7/22, Page 122 – Demons can take the form of a human being. Therefore one has to be sure that the body in its moment of death (perhaps crying out a last lament) was an actual human being. How does one determine that? The sages turn to Yonatan, an actual demon, apparently on call to the Talmudic council. He says that while a demon has a shadow, it doesn’t have a shadow of a shadow… sort of an aura. Because eyewitnesses are knowledgeable about auras… Again, the Talmudic council had an on call demon. End tractate. Finally.

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