Daily Talk
A man says his name is Yosef and it turns out to be Yosef Shimon, and she is married. Add one word, only Yosef, and she is not. Two halachot earlier the same chapter rules that what she felt in her heart cannot rescue a kiddushin. Three halachot later a thought nobody witnessed, in a man everyone knows to be wicked, is enough to bind her. Why should the heart count for nothing there and for everything here?
On Condition That I Am Righteous
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About This Talk
Chapter 8 opens on a long double sided list of conditions that fail, wine that proves to be honey and honey that proves to be wine, silver that proves to be gold and gold that proves to be silver, a kohen who is a Levite and a Levite who is a kohen, a townsman who is a city dweller, a poor man who is rich and a rich man who is poor, a house near the bathhouse that is far and a house far from it that is near, along with the domestic stipulations about a maidservant, a daughter who braids hair or bakes, and a wife and children, and in every one of them the woman is not consecrated, the identical rule applying where she supplied the false information. It then rules that neither party can rescue the kiddushin by declaring that in the heart the marriage was wanted anyway, since matters of the heart are not statements, and it shows how narrow the failure is, because a man who said he is a perfumer and is also a tanner, or that his name is Yosef and is also Shimon, has told the truth and she is consecrated, while the single word only or solely reverses each case. The chapter then defines what the grand claims cost, requiring Onkelos of a man who says he can read, Torah, Prophets and Writings of a man who calls himself a reader, and Mishnah, Sifra, Sifre and Tosefta of a sage of the Mishnah, while refusing absolute measures for student, wise, mighty and rich and anchoring each in the judgment of the man's own companions and city, and it closes on the two claims nobody can check, ruling that a known wicked man who stipulates that he is righteous, and a known righteous man who stipulates that he is wicked, both create a doubtful kiddushin because of a thought that may have crossed the heart, and that a man who merely assumed something untrue about his bride is married, since she did not cause him to err.