#yebamot

Today, we are talking about a Mishnah, specifically Eduyot 4:8 (which is the same as Yebamot 1:4). We have a disagreement here between the houses of Hillel and Shammai on a variety of issues related to marriage, but I find the conclusion rather heartwarming.

To be fruitful and multiply.  According to Yohanan b Beroqa, a commandment not just on men, but also on women.  He quotes Genesis 1:28: "And he blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply."

The strangeness, explicitness of the text.  “He should not marry a girl who has lost her virginity by reason of a blow from a piece of wood.”  A piece of wood, or “mukat es,” puzzles.

But see the following bizarre account from 18th century Aleppo:

An anxious mother told the judge how her four-year-old daughter had accidentally fallen off a stairwell, landed on one of her wooden clogs, and lost her virginity.  She requested an official document certifying the facts of the incident, and had a group of neighbors ready on hand to confirm the story from hearsay.

The art of exclusion.  Different definitions of the term "mamzer."  Cutting off any discussion, like the alienation of the mamzer, the mishna definitively decides the halakha.  No lingering hopes here.

Of more interest are the actions of Shim'on b Azzai.  To support one of the opinions, he consults the megillat yohasin, the scroll of genealogies.

Whether Jews were fastidious about genealogy is an open question.  Evidence exists of priests maintaining genealogical records.  These records were apparently open to public view at the temple.  In Jewish communities outside of Israel, scant evidence exists of such lists.  The megillat yohasin seems to have been the exception rather than the rule.

Soferim intrude into the biblical-rabbinic hegemonic axis.  Our mishna ascribes the source of the law to the "words of the soferim."  These mysterious sages, even the root of the name is unclear: scribes, counters of letters, those who learn the law by mnemonic numbering?

The legal authority of this source proves just as ambiguous.  To Maimonides, "In terms of its binding nature, it is less binding than a biblical law but more binding than a rabbinic ordinance.  It is neither biblical nor rabbinic."  David Weiss Halivni, Peshat and Derash (1991) at 83.

In his Sefer Hamisvot, or Book of Commandments, Maimonides expresses the concept more lyrically, "All that was not heard at Sinai in full clarity is considered the words of the soferim."