One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 1
Sefer Nashim · What the Torah added to a marriage that used to require nothing but two willing people, why the acquisition everyone actually uses is the one the Sages supplied, and the ordered list of everyone who may not pass through the gate the chapter has just built
3
Ways a wife is acquired, of which only two come from the Torah
20
Shniyot, forbidden by the Oral Tradition rather than by Scripture
9
Relations forbidden by a negative commandment without karet
3
Prohibitions that arise from a positive commandment alone
Part 1What the Torah added, and what it takes to undo
- Before Sinai it took nothing at all. A man would meet a woman in the marketplace, and if he and she decided to marry he would bring her home, conduct relations in private, and she was his wife; once the Torah was given the Jews were commanded that a man who desires to marry must acquire her as a wife in the presence of witnesses, and only after this does she become his wife. (1:1)
- Three acquisitions, and the common one is Rabbinic. The acquisition is a positive commandment and is formalized through money, through a formal document or through relations, of which relations and the document have their origin in the Torah itself while the effectiveness of money is Rabbinic in origin; the process is called erusin or kiddushin, and the woman is mekudeshet or me'ureset. (1:2)
- Married on a morning when nothing has happened. Once the acquisition is formalized she is considered married although the bond has not been consummated and she has not entered her husband's home, anyone else who is with her is liable to execution by the court, and a husband who wishes to end it must compose a get. (1:3)
- The arrangement the Torah closed. Before the Torah a man could pay a woman, be with her where they wished and depart, and such a woman is called a harlot; the Torah forbade this, so that one who has relations with a woman for the sake of lust without kiddushin receives lashes by Torah law, having had relations with a harlot. (1:4)
RememberThe Torah did not raise the standard of feeling. It required two people who have no stake in the matter to be standing there when the feeling is acted on.
Part 2The gravest prohibitions, and the ones the Sages added
- Arayot, the relations that carry karet. Whenever relations are forbidden by the Torah and make one liable for karet, as with the forbidden relationships listed in Parashat Acharei Mot such as a person's mother, sister or daughter, these are called arayot and each particular one is an ervah. (1:5)
- Twenty more from the Oral Tradition. Other women are forbidden by the Oral Tradition and these prohibitions are Rabbinic in origin, called shniyot, prohibitions of a secondary nature, and they number twenty, running mostly through grandmothers, the wives of grandfathers, daughters in law and great granddaughters. (1:6)
- Four of them never stop. Most shniyot forbid the one woman named and go no further, but four continue without interruption: one's maternal grandmother and one's paternal grandmother upward, the wife of one's paternal grandfather upward, and the wife of one's son's son downward. (1:6)
- The Rambam shows what unbroken means. To make the four unbroken categories concrete he writes that the wife of our Patriarch Jacob is forbidden to any one of us, and that any one of our wives is forbidden to our Patriarch Jacob. (1:6)
RememberA prohibition with no stopping point genuinely has none, in both directions, across every generation that has lived since.
Part 3The lighter weights, and what still binds
- Nine forbidden by a negative commandment. Relations forbidden by the Torah that carry no karet are called issurei lavin and also issurei kedushah, prohibitions that encourage holiness, and they are nine, including a widow to a High Priest, a divorcee or zonah or chalalah to any priest, a mamzer to a native born Jew, a Moabite or Ammonite convert to a native born Jewish woman, a man remarrying his divorcee after another marriage, and a yevamah who marries outside. (1:7)
- Two of those equations are Rabbinic. By Rabbinic decree a woman who underwent chalitzah is equated with a divorcee and is likewise forbidden to a priest, and the netinim were placed in the same status as mamzerim, whose identity is explained in Hilchot Issurei Biah. (1:7)
- Three that arise from a positive commandment. Some relationships are forbidden by an issur aseh and by no negative commandment at all, and there are three: the first and second generations of Egyptian converts and of Edomite converts, men and women alike, and a woman who is not a virgin to a High Priest. (1:8)
- Derived, and binding all the same. No verse says he shall not enter or he may not take, so the prohibition on the Egyptian and Edomite converts is inferred from the statement that in the third generation they may enter the congregation, and the prohibition on the High Priest from the command that he shall marry a virgin; a prohibition derived from a positive commandment has the status of a positive commandment. (1:8)
RememberHaving built a gate in four rulings, the chapter spends the next four on the doorposts, and calls them prohibitions that encourage holiness rather than prohibitions that prevent damage.