One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה · פֶּרֶק ג
Forbidden Intercourse 3
Sefer Kedushah · Adultery measured against the marriage • Three executions and where they are carried out • The shifchah charufah
3
Executions for adultery:
strangling, burning, stoning
4
Conditions before a maiden
and partner are stoned
1
Guilt offering for the
shifchah charufah, however often
9
Age at which a boy’s act
already obligates the offering
3:1-3No Bond, No Capital Sin
- A minor cannot be a husband. Relations with the wife of a minor carry no liability, neither execution nor a sin offering, since there is no Torah marriage with a male below majority. This holds even for a yevamah with whom a nine year old brother had relations. (3:1)
- Incapacity and doubt remove liability too. The same applies to the wife of a deaf-mute, of one mentally unstable, of a tumtum or androgynus, to a deaf-mute or unstable woman married to a capable man, and to any woman whose betrothal or divorce is doubtful. If they acted willfully they receive stripes for rebellious conduct. (3:1)
- A minor wife betrothed by her father. Her betrothal is binding by Torah law: her partner is strangled, she bears nothing as a minor, and she becomes forbidden to her husband. If her marriage is one she may end by mi’un, he receives only stripes and she stays permitted, even to a priest. (3:2)
- A priest’s daughter. A married priest’s daughter who commits adultery is burned, whether her husband is a priest or an Israelite, even a mamzer or natin; her partner is strangled. An Israelite’s daughter married to a priest is strangled like any married woman. (3:3)
RememberThe sentence follows the bond, not the appearance of one. Where Torah law sees no marriage, it sees no capital adultery.
3:4-12The Consecrated Maiden and the Doorway
- Stoning needs four conditions. Maiden in age, a virgin, betrothed but not married, and in her father’s home. Once she comes of age, enters the chuppah even without consummation, or is handed to the husband’s agents and transgresses on the way, the penalty is strangulation. (3:4)
- Variations. A betrothed minor in her father’s house: he is stoned, she is exempt. A betrothed maiden who is a priest’s daughter is stoned. A maiden who was a convert or freed maidservant, even before age three, is strangled. (3:5-8)
- The malicious report proven true. Where a husband’s claim is confirmed by witnesses, she is stoned at her father’s door even if she transgressed after leaving his home or after the chuppah before consummation. Hence three executions for adultery: strangulation, burning and stoning. (3:8-10)
- Where the sentence is carried out. Transgression in her father’s house: his door, even if testimony came after her marriage. In her father-in-law’s house before she was conveyed: the city gate. Testimony after she came of age or after her husband lived with her: the ordinary place of execution. A mostly gentile city: the court’s entrance. No father or no house: the place of execution, the doorway being only the preferred mitzvah. (3:11-12)
RememberThe father’s door rebukes the parents and the city gate rebukes the town. No one transgresses entirely alone.
3:13-endCounting Acts, and the Woman Half Free
- Every act counts. Repeated transgression with a forbidden woman brings liability for each act, and one act that violates several prohibitions brings a sin offering for each if done inadvertently. (3:13)
- Who the shifchah charufah is. Half a Canaanite maidservant and half free, betrothed to a Hebrew servant. “They shall not die, because she was not freed”; if fully freed she is a married woman in every sense. (3:14)
- Lashes for her, one offering for him. She is lashed for each willful act; he brings a guilt offering whether willful or inadvertent, only one however many times. Liability requires complete relations. (3:14-15)
- His offering hangs on her liability. He is liable only if she is an adult, had been with a man before, and acted willingly; if she was a minor, never with a man, inadvertent, forced or asleep, neither offering nor lashes apply, only Rabbinic stripes where both adults acted deliberately. A boy of nine brings the offering when she is liable. (3:15 and following)
RememberNo guilt offering from him until there are lashes for her. His atonement is tied to her accountability.