Context is Everything – Now What Are We Supposed To Do? -- A Lesson about Processing our Laws and Practices

As I continue my learning of Masechet Kiddushin in the Gemara (Talmud) I am continually struck by not so much the laws and practices and discussion of them in the text, but more so by the context in which they are developed and the resultant adaptation. I continue to be more and more certain that we HAVE to look at the spirit of the law and the times in which it was developed and extrapolate lessons for our days, our time and our context in terms of this adaptive process. We need to remember not get tripped up on what one thinks to be the exact following of this practice or that tradition without a full understanding of how it came to be the practice it was and the nuances that are involved in that process as well as the resulting practice. Let me explain. I am in the middle of Perek Sheni (Chapter Two) of Mas. Kiddushin for those familiar with the text and am specifically engrossed by a discussion regarding marriages that are valid and those that are not. From a contemporary point of view, this discussion may seem odd at best and sit-com ridiculous at best. Here is an example (promise not to laugh too hard or shake your head too vigorously)!

On 51b (for those of you who want to check this out) we learn as follows:

“One who has two groups of daughters from two wives and says ‘I gave my oldest daughter to a certain man for marriage but I do not know if it was the oldest daughter of the older group of daughters or it was the eldest daughter of the younger ones… or the oldest daughter of this wife or the oldest daughter of that wife…’ they are all prohibited to marry other men except for the youngest daughter of the group of youngest ones.”

Okay, where do we begin? First of all let me assure you this is NOT part of a comedy sketch, but a realistic question. So before we even address the issue, remember that at this time as for so much of history marriage was in fact a business arrangement, not a love match. Involved were factors including maintaining of family fortunes, status, and connection to other families with whom there was already a generational connection as well as insuring the birth of children who would do all of the same things. Ask around in your own families and if you go far back enough, say as little as two generations for some of us, you will find that this discussion from no later than 600 CE would still be relevant, even operative say, 70 years ago. In some parts of the world today, it still is.

So before you pull out your NOW (National Organization of Women) posters and go to your nearest “How Horrible Men Are Rally,” consider that everyone, INCLUDING MEN, had scripted roles in communities to insure the viability and continuation of those groups of people and all that they had built up. Also to be factored in is that health care was not what it is in our world (though it still is not what we would want and need in too much of our world today, if we are honest with ourselves) and giving birth was always considered a “sakana” or a danger; that is a rather compelling reason that it was men who are commanded by Jewish Law to have children; women just agreed to help them do so (how nice of us!). And then of course there is this – people were not professionals and quality of life was just so different it is impossible for us to imagine the cultural, historical and social context of the backdrop against which these practices were implemented.

That being said, contracts, word of mouth, designation of status of people, stating use for things, and so much else were very much part of everyday life and it is the most basic of principles regarding these elements that informed the development of so many practices in so many categories. Within this context, laws and practices of marriage and divorce were based on what we might call today in modern legal terms “contract law.” Feelings, desires of one person in terms of charting out their destiny and fulfilling one’s dreams – so greatly encouraged today in many parts of our reality – just did not happen at this time generally.

As we continue in the same text, we learn a few lines later as follows:

“If a man marries one of two sisters and got mixed up and does not know which one he set out to marry, he must give a bill of divorce to both of them.”

Really? How can one be so UNINTENTIONAL about whom one marries? Yes, that may feel foreign to us today (though again not necessarily in all parts of the world as we know it) but marriage was one of the things one did as one journeyed through life, without the intentionality we would hope is attached to it today. Remember that people did not date for a few years or meet in college, but rather were matched for a variety of reasons as explained above.

Back to what I like and find so remarkable about this discussion. Within this extremely foreign context with its seemingly questionable practices, which were part of society at the time, great pains are taken to insure that injustices are not committed within the parameters of these practices, as they existed. Men are not to engage in these arrangements without thought, women are not to be considered unworthy and not respected, women are not to be left in unquestionable situations as to whether or not they are married, there are great pains to insure that children are not born without proper and known lineage and so on. Marriages and divorces are to be undertaken with intention and to be done in a respectable way.

Again, for many of us today, there may be no way to make any of this respectable in our eyes. But, this is where our context is so important. If, in a world that was “not as evolved” as we think we are, these concerns are carefully, repeatedly and painstakingly constructed, de-constructed and re-constructed to insure proper practice, this is quite instructive. That alone would be a good practice for today.

If we were to ask ourselves these same questions: Are our practices accommodating the impact of the actual things we do to others? Are all parties to a contract or any arranged interaction respected and addressed in a way that is “for their sake” (a concept that is continually repeated as discussed in this blog previously regarding what is for the sake of the woman)? Are we acting intentionally and considering all of the different aspects of what we are doing in a way that is fair and just?

If we could just do that much, and, since we do think and believe our basic practices are so much more evolved, imagine what a world we could build together…. in the spirit of the very intentional development of the law of the Talmud.