Kiddushin, Daf Kaf Tet, Part 6

 

Introduction

Today s sugya discusses the issue of marrying and studying Torah. Studying Torah for rabbis was a very intense, committed occupation. Very hard to do and yet maintain a family life. On the other hand, rabbis were young men with sexual desires. If marriage is the only sexual outlet, well how can rabbis stay unmarried for so many years. There is no easy solution to this dilemma, but this is the topic our sugya addresses. For those interested, the topic has been addressed by several scholars, including Jeffrey Rubenstein and Daniel Boyarin. It is a fascinating topic, but my commentary will pretty much adhere to the text itself.

 

ת"ר ללמוד תורה ולישא אשה ילמוד תורה ואח"כ ישא אשה ואם א"א לו בלא אשה ישא אשה ואח"כ ילמוד תורה

אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל הלכה נושא אשה ואח"כ ילמוד תורה

ר’ יוחנן אמר ריחיים בצוארו ויעסוק בתורה

ולא פליגי הא לן והא להו:

 

Our Rabbis taught: If one has to study Torah and to marry a wife, he should first study and then marry. But if he cannot [live] without a wife, he should first marry and then study.

Rav Judah said in the name of Shmuel: The halakhah is: [A man] first marries and then studies. R. Yohanan said: [With] a millstone around the neck, shall one study Torah!

But they do not disagree: the one refers to ourselves [Babylonians]; the other to them [Israelis].

 

In Eretz Yisrael they seem to have preferred learning Torah for some time and then getting married later (hard to know when). This allows the student/rabbi to learn full time without a millstone around his neck. [Let s face it, marriage is a responsibility for both partners, and it is hard to be completely dedicated to a project while one is also responsible for a family]. In Babylonia, they marry and then head off to the Yeshiva to learn.

 

משתבח ליה רב חסדא לרב הונא בדרב המנונא דאדם גדול הוא

א"ל כשיבא לידך הביאהו לידי

כי אתא חזייה דלא פריס סודרא

א"ל מאי טעמא לא פריסת סודרא

א"ל דלא נסיבנא

אהדרינהו לאפיה מיניה א"ל חזי דלא חזית להו לאפי עד דנסבת

רב הונא לטעמיה דאמר בן עשרים שנה ולא נשא אשה כל ימיו בעבירה

בעבירה סלקא דעתך אלא אימא כל ימיו בהרהור עבירה

 

R. Hisda praised R. Hamnuna in front of R. Huna as a great man. He said to him, When he visits you, bring him to me. When he arrived, he saw that he wore no head-covering.

He said to him: Why do you not have a head-covering?

He replied, Because I am not married.

Thereupon he [R. Huna] turned his face away from him. He said to him, See to it that you do not appear before me [again] before you are married.

R. Huna followed his own reasoning. For he said: He who is twenty years of age and is not married spends all his days in sin. In sin do you really think so? Rather say: He spends all his days in sinful thoughts.

 

R. Huna does not even want to look at a man who is unmarried and is older than 20. This is in line with the Babylonian point of view, that men should marry at a relatively young age.

 

אמר רבא וכן תנא דבי ר’ ישמעאל עד כ’ שנה יושב הקב"ה ומצפה לאדם מתי ישא אשה כיון שהגיע כ’ ולא נשא אומר תיפח עצמותיו

 

Rava said, and so too the School of R. Ishmael taught: Until the age of twenty, the Holy One, blessed be He, sits and waits. When will he take a wife? As soon becomes twenty and has not married, He exclaims, Blast his bones!

 

A word of warning about sources like this and the ones that come before and after. The rabbis clearly want men to marry by the age of twenty. This does not mean that men did so. Indeed, I could argue that this source implies that men were not marrying before twenty otherwise why exhort them to do so.

 

אמר רב חסדא האי דעדיפנא מחבראי דנסיבנא בשיתסר ואי הוה נסיבנא בארביסר הוה אמינא לשטן גירא בעיניך

 

R. Hisda said: The reason that I am superior to my colleagues is that I married at sixteen.

And had I married at fourteen, I would have said to Satan, An arrow in your eye.

 

Here we can get a sense of why the rabbis urge men (boys) to marry so early to ward off Satan. This is probably a way of expressing the sexual urge. Unmarried boys over the age of puberty will almost certainly either masturbate or engage in illicit sex, both activities the rabbis did not condone. To prevent this, it would be best to marry as young as 14. But again, this does not mean that people actually did so.

א"ל רבא לר’ נתן בר אמי אדידך על צוארי דבריך משיתסר ועד עשרים ותרתי ואמרי לה מתמני סרי עד עשרים וארבעה

כתנאי (משלי כב, ו) "חנ(ו)ך לנער על פי דרכו" ר’ יהודה ורבי נחמיה חד אמר משיתסר ועד עשרים ותרתין וחד אמר מתמני סרי ועד עשרים וארבעה

 

Rava said to R. Nathan b. Ammi: While your hand is still upon your son’s neck, [marry him off], between sixteen and twenty-two. Others state, Between eighteen and twenty-four.

This is like a tannaitic dispute. Educate a youth in the way he should go (Proverbs 22:6): R. Judah and R. Nehemiah: One holds: Between sixteen and twenty-two; the other holds: Between eighteen and twenty-four.

 

This source debates whether men should marry between the ages of 16-22 or 18-24. Note that these ages are slightly older than those above.