One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
אִישׁוּת
Marriage 6
Sefer Nashim · The four rules that govern every conditional agreement in Torah, what a person can and cannot be asked to promise, and the two phrases that suspend most of the rules
4
Rules every conditional agreement in Torah has to satisfy
200
Zuz, the sum the chapter uses to test each way a condition fails
2
Words, al menat, that set aside all but one of those rules
1
Requirement that never lifts: the condition must be possible to fulfill
Part 1The four rules, and every way a condition dies
- A condition binds, from either side. Kiddushin made on a condition takes effect if the condition is met and is void if it is not, and it makes no difference whether the man or the woman stipulated it; the same four rules then govern every conditional agreement in Torah, in kiddushin, divorce, commercial transactions and business law alike. (6:1)
- Doubled, positive first, before the deed, and possible. The stipulation must state both outcomes, must put the positive before the negative, must be spoken before the deed it governs is completed, and must be something that can be done; break one and the stipulation is nullified, meaning it is as if no condition was ever made, so the woman is consecrated or divorced at once and the sale simply closes. (6:2, 6:13)
- The order of the words decides everything. Stating the full condition and then handing over the dinar is valid; handing it over first and stipulating afterwards is void even within a brief span of time; stating only the positive half is void; and stating the negative half before the positive is void, with the woman consecrated immediately and owing nothing in each case. (6:3, 6:4, 6:5, 6:6)
- The heavens are read as teasing. A condition that she ascend to the heavens or descend to the depths is of no consequence and the kiddushin take effect at once, because everyone knows she cannot keep it, so he is understood to be speaking facetiously in a jesting and teasing manner rather than stipulating at all. (6:7)
- Where the doubling rule comes from. Some later geonim held that a condition need only be doubled for kiddushin and divorce and not for money, and the Rambam rules that it is not proper to rely on this, since the Sages derived the doubling and the other rules from the condition made with the tribes of Gad and Reuven, which concerned neither betrothal nor divorce. (6:14)
RememberA broken condition never breaks the deed. The reservation falls out of the sentence and the marriage is left standing, with nothing owed.
Part 2What a person may be asked to promise
- A condition to sin is still a condition. Stipulating that she is consecrated if she eats forbidden fat or blood, or divorced if she eats the meat of pigs, is a valid stipulation and takes effect if she transgresses, and it is not what the Sages meant by a stipulation contradicting the Torah, since she has the option not to eat and not to be consecrated or divorced. (6:8)
- What contradicting the Torah actually means. The rule that a stipulation against Torah is nullified except in financial matters applies to a man using a condition to seize a right the Torah withheld from him or to shed an obligation the Torah placed on him; there he is told that his stipulation is of no consequence and the deed he performed is binding. (6:9)
- The sentence gets split in half. A man who betroths on condition that he owes no provisions, no garments and no conjugal rights is told that the stipulation binds for provisions and garments, which are financial, and does not bind for conjugal rights, which the Torah imposed; she is consecrated and he owes them, with no power to release himself. (6:10)
- Another person's sin is as far off as the sky. A condition requiring her to engage in forbidden relations with her father, brother or son is treated exactly like a condition that she ascend to the heavens and is of no consequence, because it is not within her capacity to cause others to transgress, so he has stipulated something she cannot fulfill. (6:11)
- Another person's ordinary choice is a matter of price. A condition that she get a third party to give him a courtyard, or to marry his daughter to his son, is binding, because it is in her capacity to fulfill it by paying that man a large sum so that he will consent, and because no sin is involved in the arrangement. (6:12)
RememberMoney and persuasion are inside your reach. Somebody else's decision to sin is filed with the floor of the ocean and the roof of the sky.
Part 3When it takes effect, and the two phrases that change the rules
- The betrothal waits for the condition. Kiddushin made conditionally take effect when the stipulation is fulfilled and not when the dinar was given, so a dinar handed over in Nisan against money paid in Elul makes her consecrated in Elul, and if another man consecrates her before the first completes his stipulation she is consecrated to the second. (6:15)
- From this time onward reaches backwards. Where he said that she is consecrated from this time onward if he later gives her the money, the fulfilment of the condition makes the kiddushin retroactive to the day of the dinar however long has passed, and a second man who consecrated her in the interval acquires nothing. (6:16)
- Three rules lift at once. A man who says from this time onward need not double his stipulation and need not state it before the deed, and may perform the deed first; only possibility survives, since one who stipulates the impossible is merely speaking facetiously and has made no stipulation at all. (6:17)
- Al menat works the same way. The wording al menat, on condition that, carries the same leniencies as from this time onward, dispensing with the twofold statement and with stating the condition before the deed, which is why two ordinary words can rescue a stipulation that would otherwise have collapsed. (6:17)
- Consecrated, and still owing the money. Where he said behold you are consecrated to me on condition that you give me two hundred zuz, the stipulation binds and she must pay; if she does not pay she is not consecrated at all, and when she does pay the betrothal takes effect retroactively from the moment the deed was performed, as if no condition had been made. (6:18)
RememberTwo words at the front of a sentence do the work of four separate rules. The sloppiest sounding formula in the chapter is the one that holds.