תלמוד על כתובות 5:1

HALAKHAH: “A woman who was eating heave,” etc. It is acceptable, “your husband died.” “He divorced you?²Since a woman is legally divorced only if the divorce document is delivered to her or her agent, the Halakhah has to find a case in which the divorced woman may have eaten heave in error.” The rabbis say, this follows the old Mishnah⁹Mishnah Ketubot 5:3: “One gives a virgin 12 months after the bridegroom claimed her to get her trousseau … If that time arrived and she is not married she eats from him and she eats heave …, this is the old Mishnah. The later authorities said, no woman eats heave until she enters the bridal canopy.” The Mishnah deals with a minor who is married off by her father. After the preliminary wedding ceremony (cf. Peah 6:2, Note 46) the bride really is “acquired by the husband’s money” and, by biblical law (Lev. 22:11) she may eat heave if the husband is a Cohen. By an old rabbinic institution, she is prevented from eating heave until the date originally fixed for the actual wedding, when it was planned that she should start living with her husband. The later authorities restricted the access of the Israel bride of a Cohen to the time after the final marriage ceremony.
The final marriage ceremony emancipates the bride from her father’s authority. During the time between preliminary and final ceremonies, Mishnah Giṭṭin 6:2 states that both the minor and her father may accept a divorce document; R. Jehudah denies the right of the minor to receive the document (cf. Peah Chapter 4, Note 117). The Mishnah here can refer to with a woman eating heave in error only in case the woman still is a minor and the groom did not finally marry her at the previously stipulated time. In this approach, with the decree of the later authorities the mention of a divorce in our Mishnah became meaningless., according to which the betrothed daughter of an Israel eats heave and her father accepts her divorce document. Rebbi Eliezer¹⁰He must be R. Eleazar ben Pedat, the student of R. Joḥanan. Probably, his name was changed here to distinguish him from R. Eleazar ben Shamua‘, the Tanna, who is quoted in the next sentence. [The changes from “R. Eliezer” to “R. Eleazar” and vice-versa in all printed editions has no basis in mss. The Yerushalmi tradition of Mishnah Giṭṭin 6:4 (Leyden ms. and Venice print, Mishnah ed. Low) as well as the main text of the Munich ms. of the Babli and the mss. of the later version of Maimonides’s Commentary read “R. Eleazar”; the Napoli Mishnah and the early version of Maimonides’s Commentary read “R. Eliezer”.] Since R. Eleazar is the main authority on divorce documents, it is reasonable to read “R. Eleazar” in the Mishnah. says, you may even say following the later Mishnah; explain it that she said to him, bring my divorce document from place X and usually that should have taken him ten days to deliver to her but he found a galloping horse and brought it to her in five days. Rebbi Eliezer cannot follow Rebbi Eleazar, as we have stated¹¹Mishnah Giṭṭin 6:4: “Bring me my divorce document, she eats heave until the document comes into her possession. Accept the document for me, she immediately is forbidden heave. Accept the document for me at place X, she eats heave until the document reaches place X; Rebbi Eleazar forbids her immediately.” This Mishnah speaks of the adult wife appointing an agent. (A minor, even though emancipated from her father, cannot appoint an agent. She can be divorced only by delivery of the document into her hands by the husband or his duly appointed agent. If she is too young to take care of the document, she cannot be divorced.): “Rebbi Eleazar forbids her immediately.” Does Rebbi Eleazar not agree that if she said, bring my divorce document from place X, that she may eat heave until the document arrives at that place¹²An agent who violates the terms of his appointment is not a valid agent for divorce documents. If the agent would accept the document at another place, the document would be invalid and the woman not divorced. There is no reason for her not to eat heave until the document reaches the specified place.? Rebbi Ḥaninah said, when she said to him, bring my divorce document from place X, it is as if she had said to him, it shall become a divorce document only after ten days. What she ate, she ate with permission¹³In this case, even R. Eliezer will agree that heave was eaten lawfully, there is no case of restitution of anything, and the explanation of R. Eleazar ben Pedat is contradicted..

HALAKHAH: “If somebody makes a vow that his wife should not have any usufruct from him,” etc. There⁶Mishnah 5:8. There, the House of Hillel already force the husband to divorce his wife after one week., we have stated: “If somebody by a vow bars his wife from sexual intercourse,” and here you say so? There, he makes a vow to separate her from his body⁷A vow not to sleep with his wife is essentially a vow to terminate the marriage; a vow concerning money matters is not., but here he makes a vow to separate her from his property. But can anybody make a vow not to pay his debt⁸Why should the vow be valid if it infringes contractual rights of third parties? (Cf. Introduction to Tractate Nedarim.)? Rebbi Yose ben Ḥanina said, since in the future he will divorce her, pay her the ketubah, and stop her food supply, it is as if there was no debt⁹The Babli, 70a, notes that the partners in a marriage have the right to separate their incomes: The husband can renounce any benefit from his wife’s work and not pay any of her expenses or the wife can renounce any support from her husband and keep all her earnings. But any of these possibilities presuppose mutual consent.. Why could she not sit there and wait; if he divorced her everything would be in order, otherwise let him provide her with food¹⁰Since in Halakhah 5:8 the obligation of the husband to feed his wife was given a biblical basis, why should the husband’s vow not simply be declared invalid and he be forced to feed his wife by a court order?? It follows him who said that the wife’s food is not from words of the Torah¹¹This and the next argument are explained in Ma‘serot 3:1, Notes 11–13. Cf. also the argument of R. Eliezer ben Jacob in Halakhah 5:8 and the last sentence of Chapter 13., as it was stated¹²Tosephta Ševi‘it 5:22.: The court will not determine food for the wife from Sabbatical money, but she may be given Sabbatical produce to eat at her husband’s¹³If the husband is away on a trip and the wife needs money to survive, she can sell some of the husband’s property under the supervision of the court. She cannot sell Sabbatical produce since nobody may use such produce to pay his debts (and the wife’s claim is a debt based on the ketubah document.) But if the husband is present, she may eat from his Sabbatical fruit since this fulfills the rabbinic ordinance to support the wife and is not counted as paying a debt.. Then should she not be considered as a worker not worth a peruṭah¹⁴²Which is not a defect for a male, cf. Note 137.? This proves that she is not considered as a worker not worth a peruṭah.

He could appoint a provider¹⁵The Mishnah requires the husband to look for a provider but in fact he cannot appoint one since his vow prohibits him to provide for his wife through an agent. The only way the husband can fulfill his obligation is indicated by Mishnah Nedarim 4:8 (Notes 101,102) quoted here, in that he indicates to a third person that he is ready to repay that person after he has provided for his wife, in a way that the provider could not have recourse to the courts if the husband would not pay., as the following: “X is forbidden any profit from me by a vow and I do not know what to do.” Let him appoint a provider¹⁶Why can the wife force a divorce if she is provided for?! A woman has the right to say, it is impossible for me to be provided for by anybody other than my husband. But did we not state¹⁷Mishnah 5:11. That Mishnah and the following give detailed instructions how a wife is provided for by an agent, giving the impression that this refers to a permanent arrangement. Why is this only accepted as very temporary in the Mishnah here?: “If somebody provides for his wife through a third party.” There, if she accepted it; here, if she did not accept it. If she did not accept it¹⁸This clause is an insert by the first corrector. The text is suspect since אִי is Babylonian, for Galilean אִין “if”. then he should not appoint even for one day! She continues with him for one month, perhaps he will find an opening for his vow¹⁹One requires a cooling-down period of one month to give the husband time to regret his vow and seek dissolution of the vow by an Elder.. Samuel says, if he vowed for thirty days. But if he vowed forever, he shall divorce immediately and pay the ketubah. Rebbi Ze‘ira, Rebbi Avina in the name of Rav: Even if he vowed forever, she continues with him for one month, perhaps he will find an opening for his vow²⁰In the Babli, 71a, the positions attributed to Samuel and Rav are switched..