Rabbi Zeira: Hand in Marriage
On Nedarim 88
A quick summary, and perhaps expansion, of my Jewish Link article on Nedarim 88.
The setup is that the Mishnah states a case in which a father vows off giving benefit to his son-in-law, but wants to provide for his daughter. He can do so via a stipulation:
This money is hereby given to you as a gift, provided that your husband has no rights to it, but the gift includes only that which you pick up and place in your mouth.
The question, debated by Rav and Shmuel, is whether the second phrase in the stipulation, אֶלָּא מָה שֶׁאַתְּ נוֹשֵׂאת וְנוֹתֶנֶת בְּפִיךְ, “only that which you pick up and place in your mouth,” is precise or only by way of example. If precise and a necessary phrase, well then, this is a problem. Why? I’ll continue after my article images. Click to see them full screen.
As Rabbi Zeira explains and objects, מַתְקֵיף לַהּ רַבִּי זֵירָא, this operates under the assumption that this is Rabbi Meir, who maintains a woman’s hand is like that of her husband. Yet we have an objection, וּרְמִינְהוּ, from making a shituf in a mavoi, where the Mishnah lists the wife as a separate hand for the sake of acquisition.
I then digress into three points.
#1. I don’t believe that Rabbi Zeira would truly object. After all, in the parallel Yerushalmi Nedarim on this Mishnah, Rabbi [_______] explains that this Mishnah is like Rabbi Meir. And we wouldn’t expect Rabbi (Yehuda HaNasi) to make such a statement!
And in the parallel Yerushalmi in Kiddushin, with an identical statement, it is Rabbi Zeira who says this.
The word Zeira was simply accidentally omitted in Y erushalmi Nedarim. So back in Bavli Nedarim, מַתְקֵיף לַהּ was probably inserted by a scribe somewhere along the line of transmission, but he is merely saying it. Then, וּרְמִינְהוּ is not Rabbi Zeira’s continuation, but the Talmudic Narrator saying it himself, just like he did in the immediately prior sugya in Nedarim 87b, וּרְמִינְהוּ: ״בְּלֹא רְאוֹת״, פְּרָט לַסּוֹמֵא. דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי יְהוּדָה. רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר: לְרַבּוֹת אֶת הַסּוֹמֵא. We don’t need a named Amora for an וּרְמִינְהוּ.
#2: Where do we see Rabbi Meir ever saying yad isha keyad baalah? This has to confound most readers of the gemara, even with the aid of an Artscroll. The answer is that we don’t ever have him saying it, but we do have other disputes, and in one primary one, the Mishnah in Kiddushin 1:3 about how to free a Canaanite servant with money, a dispute between the Sages and Rabbi Meir can potentially be explained as yad eved keyad rabbo, that the servant’s hand is like that of his master. That explanation is locally proffered by the Talmudic Narrator, and rejected, and other named Amoraim explain it otherwise. But if we do accept it, Rabbi Meir is a solitary, individual opinion. And we can then use it to explain Rabbi Meir / Sages disputes elsewhere. And once we begin doing that, we can proffer the self-same explanation when one’s wife is involved, saying that he obviously extends it also to the wife’s hand. The Sages, meanwhile, if they wouldn’t maintain it for a Canaanite servant, certainly wouldn’t maintain it for a wife.
#3. However, there is a pesky Mishnah in Eruvin, brought here as well, where the wife is grouped with others, like the Hebrew servant, as those who can acquire the shituf on behalf of others, but not with the Canaanite servant who cannot. This is the וּרְמִינְהוּ. And the Yerushalmi asks this question as well.
We can answer in various ways. See the sugya inside. We can say that in this case of shituf is different, as she is explicitly acquiring for someone else (and in an edge case such as this, we’ll group her with the other free Jews); or she owns a chatzer in the mavoi.
In Yerushalmi, with students of the same Tiberian academy as Rabbi Zeira, the answer is different. We point to yet another Mishnah, where a woman is considered a third party in terms of redeeming maaser sheni, such that she doesn’t need to pay an additional fifth. This is Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazar, in the name of Rabbi Meir. But others argue in that source.
So, obviously, there are two Tannaitic opinions arguing in how they understand Rabbi Meir. One Tanna would have Rabbi Meir extend the rule to the wife while the other would not.