Closer Is Not a Distance

About This Talk

Chapter 4 opens on consent, ruling that a woman is consecrated only willingly while a man who is forced to consecrate has consecrated, and then works through where the kiddushin money actually went, so that a woman who throws the dinar away or sends it to her father is not consecrated while one who has a third man receive it on her behalf is, a rock or a dog belonging to her receives it and one belonging to both leaves the matter in doubt, a loaf sent to a poor person receives nothing even where she supports him, and a woman in a market who answers only that the seller should hand the goods over is not consecrated although she holds them, since her words mean that he should stop fooling around and give her what she asked for. The chapter then turns to capacity, voiding kiddushin performed before a single witness even where both parties admit them, requiring a get out of doubt where the witnesses are disqualified only Rabbinically, assessing a girl between six and ten for discernment while she is consecrated above ten and not at all below six, ruling that a competent man who consecrates the competent wife of a deaf mute has consecrated her since that marriage is only Rabbinic, and binding absolutely in the cases nobody expects, a seris, an aylonit, an apostate who worships idols, a niddah, and a married woman who accepts a second man's kiddushin in her husband's own presence. It closes on delivery and worth, completing the kiddushin of a half freed maidservant at the moment she is freed, holding a drunk man's act valid short of the drunkenness of Lot, ruling that money below a prutah binds nothing while food below a prutah leaves a doubt because it may be worth more elsewhere, and then adding in the Rambam's own voice that cooked food or a vegetable that will not keep binds nothing at all since it spoils before it could travel, and it ends by permitting a throw into her hand, bosom, courtyard or field and defining closer to her in the public domain as a place she can guard and he cannot.