One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הלכות איסורי ביאה
Issurei Biah 17
Sefer Kedushah · Forbidden Intercourse · which women are closed to the priesthood, how prohibitions accumulate on a single act, and why even a court-substantiated rumor disqualifies nobody
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Women forbidden to every priest
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Sets of lashes for one act
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Months wide, the High Priest's window
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Rumors that disqualify without testimony
Part 1The Line Around the Priesthood
- Three, and a fourth. A divorcee, a zonah and a challalah are forbidden to every priest by Scriptural law, the zonah defined in the next chapter and the challalah two chapters later; a High Priest adds a widow. Bound by the High Priest's restrictions are one anointed with the oil of anointment, one who assumed office by wearing the additional garments, one serving, one appointed and then removed, and the priest anointed to address the nation before a war, all commanded to marry a virgin and forbidden a widow (17:1)
- Marriage and relations both. A priest who marries one of the three and lives with her is lashed; relations without marriage carry no lashes on that count, since the verse says they shall not take, and taking means marriage. Marriage without relations also carries no lashes. The Ra'avad holds the prohibition applies even where no consecration took place (17:2, 17:4)
- Desecration is the exception. A High Priest is lashed for relations with a widow even unconsecrated, from the words he shall not desecrate, because by living with her he desecrates her and disqualifies her from the priesthood; the other three were already disqualified before he came near them. Consecrate a widow and live with her and he takes two sets of lashes, one for taking and one for desecrating (17:3-4)
- Equal liability, and the gentile woman. Whenever the priest is lashed the woman is lashed, there being no difference between a man and a woman in punishment apart from a designated maidservant; where he is not lashed, neither is she. Any priest who lives with a gentile woman is lashed for relations with a zonah, since she cannot be consecrated at all (17:5-6)
RememberThe widow is the one case where the priest himself creates the disqualification, which is why relations alone are enough to convict him
Part 2Prohibitions That Stack
- When a second prohibition takes hold. A general rule for all of the Torah's prohibitions: one does not take effect where another is already in force unless both arrive at the same moment, or the later one forbids additional entities beyond what was forbidden, or its scope encompasses other entities together with what was forbidden (17:8)
- Four sets for a single act. Widowed, then divorced by a second husband, then made a challalah, then made a zonah: a High Priest who lives with her once is lashed four times, because each status added a wider prohibition, closing ordinary priests, then terumah, then an Israelite. An ordinary priest in the same sequence takes three. Alter the order so the widest came first and only one set is given, and several widowhoods or divorces add nothing (17:9-11)
- The virgin maiden, and a narrow window. It is a positive commandment for a High Priest to marry a virgin maiden, read as a girl past minority and not yet at full maturity, the span from twelve to twelve and a half; he may never be married to two women at once, derived from the singular word for woman, which the Ra'avad questions from the verse about Yehoyada. A woman who lost her virginity by accident rather than relations is closed to him as well (17:13-14)
- No repair by marrying her. A High Priest who married a woman who had previously had relations takes no lashes, a positive commandment carrying none, but must divorce her with a get. One he himself forced or seduced he may not marry even though he caused the loss, and if he married her he must divorce her. A girl consecrated as a minor who reached full maturity before the marriage he may not marry, her body having undergone a change, though if he married her he need not divorce (17:15-17)
RememberThe number of lashes depends on nothing but the order in which the prohibitions arrived, so the same four statuses in reverse sequence yield one set
Part 3What the Law Will Not Hear
- Two kinds of doubt, two outcomes. A chalutzah, released from yibbum by the rite of chalitzah, is forbidden to a priest by Rabbinic tradition because she resembles a divorcee, and relations carry stripes for rebellious conduct. A woman whose status as a chalutzah is doubtful he is prevented from marrying beforehand but is not compelled to divorce afterward, and she and her child are acceptable, since the Sages decreed only against a definite case. A doubtful divorcee, widow, zonah or challalah brings stripes and a compelled divorce with a get, because a doubt about a Scriptural prohibition is ruled stringently (Maggid Mishneh) (17:7)
- Released without a get. A girl released from marriage through mi'un is permitted to a priest, since a marriage with no Scriptural basis needs no get to undo it, and this holds even where her husband had first divorced her with a get, remarried her, and she was then released through mi'un. A woman divorced after consecration alone is forbidden exactly as one divorced after marriage (17:18)
- When the rumor arrived decides. A rumor that a priest wrote or gave a get for his wife, while she lives with him and serves him, does not force a divorce, a rumor following a marriage being insufficient grounds. But if she was later widowed and married another priest after that rumor was already circulating, that second marriage is dissolved, because he should not have married into a standing doubt (17:19)
- Substance is still not testimony. A rumor substantiated by a court that she was consecrated and then divorced does make her status suspect, the divorcee prohibition being Scriptural; a rumor that she is a chalutzah does not, that prohibition being Rabbinic, though the Ra'avad rules stringently here. Rumors that a virgin has had relations or that she is a maidservant do not disqualify, and lineage in question needs explicit testimony (Maggid Mishneh). A woman whose husband separated from her over violated practices of modesty or over witnesses to unseemly conduct, and who died without giving her a get, is permitted to a priest absent definite testimony or her own admission (17:20-21)
RememberOnly definite testimony or her own admission closes the priesthood to her, not her husband walking out and not the whole city agreeing