A Brief History of Jewish Marriage: Teaching Kiddushin 1:1

When designing Gemara curricula for the Modern Orthodox high school classroom, educators begin with one of two organizing principles. One school of thought believes that teachers are more eager and enthusiastic about their Gemara teaching when they are studying something new. Following this view, the entire school studies the same masekhet in a given year with a different masekhet selected each year. The second approach selects a particular masekhet for each grade and that becomes the grade’s Gemara curriculum over the long term. The students learn a new masekhet each year as they progress through the system while the teachers in a particular grade teach the same masekhet from year to year. Since our school opened, we have followed the second approach. While learning a new masekhet is energizing, teaching Gemara in our system requires cultural translation, an understanding of the background that our students require in order to unpack a few lines of Gemara and continuous reconsideration of how best to engage the sugya given the particular group of students in each classroom in a given year. In fact, most teachers develop a method and strategy for engaging a particular sugya only after a few rounds of teaching of that sugya. Through actual experience in the classroom with a specific sugya, we come to learn which concepts or logic students tend to struggle with, what scaffolding they need to be properly prepared for the next few lines in the text, and the ethical or moral issues that often arise for students in the classroom. With the experience of learning and teaching a sugya, we engage a new group of students each year, which provides a distinct energy – despite returning to the same text year after year, we are actually not “teaching the same thing” every year.

The Mishnah
With these considerations in mind, parents and colleagues often ask why we decided to teach Masekhet Kiddushin to our tenth graders, particularly the opening Mishnah and sugya. The first words of the Mishnah proclaim that a woman is acquired by her husband through money document or sexual relations. Those opening words run counter to values that our students take for granted in a number of ways. The Mishnah is the first in a series that describes the ways that people (Jewish and non-Jewish slaves) and objects including animals real estate and chattel are acquired. Why is marriage the loving commitment between a man and a woman the first in such a series? Furthermore the word נקנית (translated as “acquired”) suggests a business transaction rather than the beginning of a loving and interdependent relationship. Why is the relationship described in seemingly businesslike terms?

Elsewhere, I described ways to approach the teaching of the first chapter of Mishnah Kiddushin.¹ Reading Mishna in High School: Kiddushin Chapter 1, accessible at https://machonsiach.org/reading-mishna-in-high-school-kiddushin-chapter-1/ Here, I will describe the approach that I take to teaching the first Mishnah in the masekhet that can help students find meaning and values in their study of the text. In doing so, I imagine a group of tenth graders opening the Gemara early in September with the enthusiasm and perhaps trepidation that come with new beginnings. Anticipating the questions that my students will ask informs my own learning of the sugya and my preparation for the classroom. This helps uncover the rich history of Jewish marriage that I seek to convey through our study of the opening Mishnah.

Having studied and developed some perspective on the Mishnayot of the first chapter, students are equipped to narrow their focus and do a close reading of the first Mishnah.

האשה נקנית בשלש דרכים וקונה את עצמה בשתי דרכים. נקנית בכסף בשטר ובביאה. בכסף בית שמאי אומרים בדינר ובשוה דינר. ובית הלל אומרים בפרוטה ובשוה פרוטה. וכמה היא פרוטה אחד משמנה באסר האיטלקי. וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל. היבמה נקנית בביאה. וקונה את עצמה בחליצה ובמיתת היבם

A woman is acquired in three ways and acquires herself in two ways. She is acquired through money, a document, and relations. Through money: Beit Shammai say [this means] a dinar or the equivalent of a dinar. And Beit Hillel say a pruta or an equivalent of a pruta. How much is a pruta? One eighth of an Italian issar. She acquires herself through a bill of divorce or if her husband dies. A yevamah is acquired through relations and acquires herself through chalitzah or the death of the yavam.

As our first exercise, students attempt to divide the Mishnah into a reisha and a seifa. This task is familiar, and they engage with confidence. I ask students, when compared to the other Mishnayot in this series, what is noteworthy about the structure of this Mishnah? This early in the school year, students can still be hesitant to participate. However, even three minutes in a more comfortable chavruta setting allows students to begin to play with the text. Many students quickly discover 1) that the reisha of the Mishnah is much longer than the seifa and 2) that the reisha differs in structure from the seifa of this Mishnah as well as the other Mishnayot in the series. A ten-minute class discussion brings us to the following structure of the Mishnah:

האשה נקנית בשלש דרכים וקונה את עצמה בשתי דרכים.
נקנית בכסף בשטר ובביאה.
בכסף
בית שמאי אומרים בדינר ובשוה דינר.
ובית הלל אומרים בפרוטה ובשוה פרוטה.
וכמה היא פרוטה? אחד משמנה באסר האיטלקי.
וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל.

היבמה נקנית בביאה
וקונה את עצמה בחליצה ובמיתת היבם

Students readily identify how this Mishnah might have been written to parallel the style of the rest of the unit:

האשה נקנית בכסף שטר וביאה וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל.

This would precisely parallel:

היבמה נקנית בביאה וקונה את עצמה בחליצה ובמיתת היבם.

Instead, the Mishnah begins with a “wordy” introductory sentence. In fact, this introduction does not frame the entire series of kinyanim; rather, it serves as an introduction to just the first half of the first Mishnah of this extended series of Mishnayot! I ask students: if we studied the Mishnah as we have been trained to study Chumash, what question would we ask?² The question of whether we should read Mishnah with the same sensitivity that we read Chumash is a thought provoking question that we return to throughout this opening sugya as well as in Tosafot s.v. האשה and Meiri ad loc. Students are accustomed to assuming the commitment to parsimoniousness of sacred texts and noting seemingly superfluous words. Reading this Mishnah closely, they ask, “Why include this lengthy introduction in the Mishnah?” This question will inform our study of the entire opening sugya, which indeed provides detailed interpretation of each word in this opening sentence.

Sometimes, the visual image of the text of the Mishnah prompts a few students to wonder about the debate between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. For example, they wonder why the Mishnah records a dispute regarding kesef alone. Were the other methods for performing kiddushin not subject to dispute? Furthermore, is this a new machloket? How did Jews marry prior to this dispute? Was it not legislated? Was the practice forgotten? The language of the Mishnah suggests that Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel propose different understandings of the opening statement of the Mishnah; they propose different explanations for the word kesef. Perhaps this indicates that there are historical layers within this Mishnah. Read from this perspective, I would suggest that early on, the Mishnah enumerated the three methods for performing the betrothal. Subsequently, these early Tanna’im proposed different interpretations of the kesef method. When reading the Mishnah in this way, we begin to sense a dynamism within the Mishnah, two consecutive lines that reflect a passage of time from the early layer of the text to the subsequent dispute regarding its interpretation.

To summarize, our study of the Mishnah has left us with three questions: how can we understand 1) the use of the word kinyan or acquisition in the context of marriage, 2) the purpose of the extended introductory sentence that opens the masekhet but is in fact focused only on the first half of the Mishnah, and 3) the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel cited in the Mishnah, both in terms of its history (why precisely then?) and its singularity. It will require a number of days of class to answer all of these questions. To do so, we need to turn even further to the past to provide some background that will help students understand marriage prior to the writing of this Mishnah. We will also need to move forward into the sugya in the Bavli to see whether and how the baal haGemara responded to these questions.

Before the Mishnah
In class, we take a brief journey to explore the rabbinic understanding of the history of marriage. We begin with the period prior to receiving the Torah, then enter the biblical period, followed by an exploration of the early rabbinic stage prior to the Mishnah. Rambam’s Hilkhot Ishut begins with a brief description of the history of Jewish marriage. This is one of a number of examples where Rambam begins a book with a condensed Jewish history of the topic based on selected sources in Torah and Talmud.³ Choosing to “go backwards” by studying Rambam’s narrative of the history of Jewish marriage, which was written hundreds of years later, raises an interesting question regarding history, memory, and Torah study. In the high school classroom, we are not training historians of the Talmud. We do not seek to initiate them into the world of academic study. Our Gemara department mission statement describes our goal to “guide students to see the Talmudic process as… an attempt to balance commitment to texts, values and real world issues in the hope of internalizing not just the content but the approach itself as a model of living one’s life as a Jew.” We seek to initiate our students into the world of the Beit Midrash and its texts – where Rambam’s Mishneh Torah is central to our learning – in order to draw contemporary religious meaning and social value from the experience of learning the sugya. Many, if not most, shiurim introducing Masekhet Kiddushin will engage with these opening paragraphs of Hilkhot Ishut:

הלכות אישות פרק א הלכה א
קדם מתן תורה היה אדם פוגע אשה בשוק אם רצה הוא והיא לשא אותה מכניסה לתוך ביתו ובועלה בינו לבין עצמו ותהיה לו לאשה. כיון שנתנה תורה נצטוו ישראל שאם ירצה האיש לשא אשה יקנה אותה תחלה בפני עדים ואחר כך תהיה לו לאשה שנאמר (דברים כב יג) “כי יקח איש אשה ובא אליה.”

Before the Torah was given, when a man would meet a woman in the marketplace and he and she decided to marry, he would bring her home, conduct relations in private and thus make her his wife. Once the Torah was given, the Jews were commanded that when a man desires to marry a woman, he must acquire her as a wife in the presence of witnesses. [Only] after this, does she become his wife. This is [alluded to in Devarim 22:13]: “When a man takes a wife and has relations with her….”

We can translate this Rambam for the contemporary mindset by focusing on the idea of consent (אם רצה הוא והיא) a concept that is at the forefront of contemporary sexual ethics. Prior to the giving of the Torah consent between the man and the woman was the sole requirement for marriage. The couple had the capacity to decide this for themselves. The Torah added two requirements: a kinyan and witnesses. As we will elucidate below, the Torah required a financial commitment (kinyan) from the husband and mandated that the husband do so through the law and in public via the witnesses. For today’s students, the idea of consent is very familiar. They or their siblings in college have heard many presentations about the necessity of clear consent prior to any sexual encounter. In fact, consent is the primary – if not sole – criterion for legitimating sex on today’s college campus. From this perspective, students can appreciate the Torah’s innovation as described by Rambam: sex is not just a private matter that relies on consent of the parties. ⁴Christine Emba’s recent book on sexual ethics opens with a critique of the current hyper-focus on consent as being both necessary and inadequate. Chapter 6 is entitled “Our Sex Lives Aren’t Private.” These are precisely the weaknesses that Rambam is addressing. Christine Emba, Rethinking Sex (New York: Sentinel, 2022), 1-20, 113-131.

Second, Rambam teaches that sexual intimacy requires the husband’s long-term commitment as reflected in the kinyan.⁵See below regarding the significant commitment expressed through the biblical mohar.
We will return to this below.

הלכות אישות פרק א הלכה ד
קדם מתן תורה היה אדם פוגע אשה בשוק אם רצה הוא והיא נותן לה שכרה ובועל אותה על אם הדרך והולך. וזו היא הנקראת קדשה. משנתנה התורה נאסרה הקדשה שנאמר (דברים כג יח) “לא תהיה קדשה מבנות ישראל.” לפיכך כל הבועל אשה לשם זנות בלא קדושין לוקה מן התורה לפי שבעל קדשה.

Before the Torah was given, when a man would meet a woman in the marketplace, and he and she desired, he could give her payment, engage in relations with her wherever they desired, and then depart. Such a woman is referred to as a harlot. When the Torah was given, [relations with] a harlot became forbidden, as [Devarim 23:18] states: “There shall not be a harlot among the children of Israel.” Therefore, a person who has relations with a woman for the sake of lust, without kiddushin, receives lashes as prescribed by the Torah, because he had relations with a harlot.

Rambam again begins with the scene of the marketplace, a nod to Rav’s severe prohibition against marrying in the shuk.⁶ Kiddushin 12b While the earlier Rambam taught that consent is inadequate, here Rambam teaches that consent that is achieved through payment is similarly inadequate. Here, the man attempts to convey the value of sex by paying for it. This commodification of sex violates the prohibition of kedeshah, literally a perversion of kedushah, the sanctity of sex. While payment is an expression of value, it is the value of commodities and objects. The Torah teaches that sex is the expression of deep relationship; it is not personally owned or freely exchanged. Together, this pair of halakhot teaches that, in addition to consent, a sexual relationship requires public acknowledgement of a long-term relationship expressed through significant financial commitment.

The Biblical Mohar
Upon working through these ideas of the Rambam, students will note a gap between Rambam’s description and that of our Mishnah. Where is the financial commitment in Mishnaic kiddushin? Surely Beit Hillel’s requirement of prutah expresses that even the least significant coin is adequate, seemingly the reverse of serious financial commitment? While a formal kinyan conveys a more significant degree of seriousness, is there material backing to that performative commitment? To close this gap, we return to the pesukim and midreshei halakhah.

Scholars have noted the absence of a clearly described marriage protocol in the pesukim of the Torah. Chazal scour the text for hints of the marriage laws; most of the de’oraita law is derived through interpretation. Strikingly one significant law is drawn from two brief units describing the consequences of rape and seduction (אונס ומפתה). Throughout the Talmud rape and seduction are discussed as a pair despite the significant distinction that one is physically violent while the other is not. The similar wording of these two units support such a pairing. Shemot 22:15-16 states:

(טו) וְכִי יְפַתֶּה אִישׁ בְּתוּלָה אֲשֶׁר לֹא אֹרָשָׂה וְשָׁכַב עִמָּהּ מָהֹר יִמְהָרֶנָּה לּוֹ לְאִשָּׁה: (טז) אִם מָאֵן יְמָאֵן אָבִיהָ לְתִתָּהּ לוֹ כֶּסֶף יִשְׁקֹל כְּמֹהַר הַבְּתוּלֹת:

(15) If a man seduces a virgin for whom the bride-price has not been paid, and lies with her, he must make her his wife by payment of a bride-price. (16) If her father refuses to give her to him, he must still weigh out silver in accordance with the bride-price for virgins.

Devarim 22:28-29 states:

(כח) כִּי יִמְצָא אִישׁ נַֽעֲרָה בְתוּלָה אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־אֹרָשָׂה וּתְפָשָׂהּ וְשָׁכַב עִמָּהּ וְנִמְצָאוּ:
(כט) וְנָתַן הָאִישׁ הַשֹּׁכֵב עִמָּהּ לַֽאֲבִי הַנַּֽעֲרָה חֲמִשִּׁים כָּסֶף וְלוֹ תִֽהְיֶה לְאִשָּׁה תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר עִנָּהּ לֹא יוּכַל שַׁלְּחָהּ כָּל יָמָיו:

(28) If a man comes upon a virgin who is not engaged and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, (29) the party who lay with her shall pay the girl’s father fifty [shekels of] silver, and she shall be his wife. Because he has violated her, he can never have the right to divorce her.

These pesukim are rarely learned in school. In contemporary society, rape is a crime and seduction is not. The Torah treats both as civil violations and neither as criminal cases. Many articles have been written to explain the Torah’s view on rape, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Clearly it is difficult to teach difficult texts, a tautology that is nonetheless important to state. Given this difficulty, we often avoid these texts. But something significant about the Torah’s view of marriage is contained in these verses. Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber briefly contextualizes these laws:

Israelite/Judahite society in the biblical period was both patriarchal (I use the term descriptively) and agrarian, as were virtually all Levantine societies in this period. The economy was based on ownership of land, and the landowners were virtually all men. Women, unless they had no male relatives, were subordinate to the family patriarch, whether this was her husband or her father, and subject to his decisions. In such a society, a woman survived by being the wife of a landowner. Marriage would have been arranged by the girl’s father to a man who could pay the bride-price and, thus, had a good chance of being able to support his daughter.⁷ Zev Farber, “Marrying Your Daughter to Her Rapist,” TheTorah.com, 2014, https://www.thetorah.com/article/marrying-your-daughter-to-her-rapist.

For most of human history, economic power has resided with men; women have been economically dependent, first on fathers and then on husbands. While contemporary society has worked to correct this power imbalance with uneven success, it has shaped most of human history. In the social context of the biblical period, economic power rests in the hands of men. Therefore, the Torah’s consequences, while foreign to our contemporary mindset – and in the case of rape, quite disturbing – communicate an essential message of deterrence. The Torah requires a man who has sex with a woman outside the context of marriage to take financial responsibility for the woman for the rest of his life. Whether the sexual encounter occurs as a result of physical aggression or through charisma and charm, the power imbalance between the man and the woman in a sexual context means that even the verbal consent of the woman does not relieve the man of this responsibility. These verses, properly interpreted, convey that sex requires commitment. Importantly, the Talmud clarifies that the woman can decide (as we would assume) not to accept the marriage.⁸Mekhilta Parshat Mishpatim, Masekhta d’Nezikin Parsha 17. But the woman controls that decision, and the payment must be made regardless. The purpose of the biblical sections on rape and seduction is to serve as a deterrent to men who use their economic and social power to take advantage of women. The biblical context is radically different from ours, and yet, the societal and gender challenges persist in strikingly similar fashion.

What is the scope of the financial obligation of the sexual transgressor? The Torah is explicit. He must pay the same amount as the bride price that a man must put forward in order to betrothe a woman according to Jewish law (כסף ישקל כמהר הבתולות). While the amount of the mohar remains unstated in the pasuk regarding seduction Chazal noted that the financial obligation in the case of rape is explicitly stated; the payment is fifty silver coins (חמישים כסף). Drawing connection between the word kesef in the cases of both rape and seduction, Chazal interpreted that the kesef of seduction is the same fifty silver coins stated explicitly in Devarim which is, in turn, the mohar or bride price in a standard biblical marriage. ⁹Chazal, in Mekhilta DeRashbi, chapter 22, equated the cases of rape and seduction via a gezeirah shavah:
אבל אי אתה יודע כמה הוא כסף הרי אני דן נאמר כאן כסף ונאמ’ באונס כסף. מה כסף האמור באונס חמשים כסף אף כסף האמור כאן חמשים כסף
This example of gezeirah shavah is accessible to students and we should capitalize on that. They sense through the verbal similarity of the pesukim that the word כסף intuitively refers to the same type of payment in both instances.

This gezeirah shava sheds light on the concept behind the civil payment of the sexual transgressor whether consensual or not. A man who uses his power – physical or verbal – to be sexually intimate with a woman must be prepared to take responsibility for the woman. The law here seeks to deter sexual aggression, implicitly acknowledging a concern regarding man’s economic and physical power. Through these laws, it also seeks to reform the culture around the proper context for and meaning of sex. Sex requires serious commitment as reflected in the financial obligation that comes with it.¹⁰To be sure, in the Torah, this is commonly an arrangement between the future husband and the father of the bride. This is common in antiquity and through the Middle Ages. In a future article, I will highlight the sugya’s focus on the shift from the father of the bride to the bride herself.
Through it, we are able to identify the amount of the biblical mohar. ¹¹For assessments of the dollar value of the ketubah, see Rabbi Michael Broyde and Rabbi Jonathan Reiss, “The Value and Significance of the Ketubah,” Journal of Halakha and Contemporary Society 47, (2004): 101-124; published in Hebrew as “The Value of the Ketubah,” Tehumin 25, (2005):180-195.

Returning to Rambam, I ask students to summarize what we have learned from the Torah and from the Rambam, and to do so in accessible contemporary language. This requires a conceptual and linguistic “translation” of sorts from an older, more traditional Torah language into more contemporarily applicable language. A sample summary reads as follows: Rambam describes that prior to receiving the Torah, sexual intimacy required the consent of the man and the woman but nothing more. After receiving the Torah, the man was required to make a binding financial kinyan (through the mohar payment) in public (via two witnesses) that reflected his serious commitment.

Assuming that this interpretation of the pesukim and the Rambam resonates, students are puzzled upon returning to our Mishnah and reviewing the opinions regarding kinyan kesef. Students ask: how does Beit Hillel’s minimal requirement of a perutah reflect a financial commitment? The gap between the biblical mohar and Beit Hillel’s perutah is significant and seems to defeat the initial purpose of kinyan as serious commitment.

From Mohar to Ketubah
The gap between the biblical mohar and the perutah of Beit Hillel in our Mishnah is the result of a social innovation credited to Shimon ben Shetach, the head of the Sanhedrin in the second century BCE and who, with Yehuda ben Tabbai, was of the zugot living about a century prior to Hillel. According to tannaitic sources, Shimon ben Shetach sought to solve a problem – or a pair of problems – that he saw in the system of marriage and divorce that operated in his day. While the giving of the mohar served as an assertion of the husband’s commitment to his future wife, it was, by design, a significant expense for the young man seeking to marry. The financial commitment became a deterrent to betrothal. The Talmud (Ketubot 82b) cites a beraita that reports that the heavy payment resulted in their delaying marrying:

בראשונה היו כותבין לבתולה מאתים ולאלמנה מנה והיו מזקינין ולא היו נושאין נשים…עד שבא שמעון בן שטח ותיקן שיהא כותב לה כל נכסי אחראין לכתובתה.

At first they would write for a virgin two hundred and for a widow one hundred dinars, and they would grow old and would not marry women… until Shimon ben Shetach came and instituted that he should write to her: All my property is guaranteed for her ketubah.

The Tosefta (Ketubot 12:1, Lieberman edition) records a different challenge that demanded a solution:

בראשונה כשהיתה כתובתה אצל אביה היתה קלה בעיניו להוציאה התקין שמעון בן שטח שתהא כתובתה אצל בעלה וכותב לה כל נכסין די איתאי לי אחראין ומערבין לכתובתיך דא.

Originally, when her ketubah was with her father, it was light in [her husband’s] eyes to divorce her. Shimon ben Shetach decreed that her ketubah should be with her husband and that he should write for her, “All of my property will be mortgaged or pledged for your ketubah.”

Shimon ben Shetach saw that men were delaying marriage because of the expense. Divorce was also too easy a solution for a couple with marriage difficulties. With all the power in his hands and no safeguard in place, the husband could capriciously divorce his wife after a quarrel. Shimon ben Shetach legislated a takkanah with a two-pronged effect. Rather than pay the mohar at the time of the betrothal, the husband would draw up a document that stated his commitment of two hundred zuz to his wife. This document would be central to the marriage procedure, thereby responding to both challenges while maintaining the original purpose of the mohar. The husband makes a significant commitment to his future wife to betrothe her but does not need to pay it out at the time of marriage, thus making marriage more accessible for those with fewer resources. This debt would be paid at the end of the marriage should the couple divorce or the husband pass away. The impending payment would give a husband pause before resorting to divorce. Shimon ben Shetach’s takkanah exactly reversed the prior state of affairs. Marriage was now more accessible, and divorce would impact the husband’s resources. Since that time, we refer to this document as the ketubah, the financial commitment that is written by the husband for the wife’s safekeeping.¹² Mordechai Friedman, “Marriage and the Family in the Talmud,” in Yad la-Talmud, ed. Ephraim Urbach (Jerusalem: Yad la-Talmud, 1983), 31-36. The biblical mohar was transformed by Shimon ben Shetach into a symbolic kinyan at the beginning of the marriage alongside a written commitment, a ketubah reflecting the comprehensive commitments of the husband during marriage and at its conclusion. This historical development provides rich color to the statement in Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael “ואין מהר אלא כתובה.” that the mohar and the ketubah are the same.¹³ Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, Parshat Misphatim:
מהור ימהרנה לו לאשה. למה נאמר לפי שנאמר (דברים כב) ונתן האיש השוכב עמה יכול כשם שבתפוסה נותן מיד כך במפותה נותן מיד תלמוד לומר מהור ימהרנה לו לאשה מגיד שהוא עושה עליו מהר ואין מהר אלא כתובה שנאמר (בראשית לד:יב) הרבו עלי מאד מוהר ומתן ואתנה כאשר תאמרו אלי ותנו לי הנערה לאשה.
The contemporary ketubah, which has been extant for 2,000 years, is the result of legislation by Shimon ben Shetach to respond to particular socioeconomic concerns related to marriage and divorce.

Did Shimon ben Shetach change the Torah law? This question has the potential to open an interesting class discussion about the dynamism of halakha, the nature of halakhic change, and balancing commitment to the law with the changing realities of our lives. Shimon ben Shetach instituted a significant change in response to socioeconomic realities and yet, in a very crucial sense, he kept the law intact.

For some classes, this understanding of the establishment of the ketubah provides students with the capacity and interest to read the actual text of the ketubah where they find that it is indeed a marriage document in which the husband proclaims the kiddushin (הוי לי לאנתו כדת משה וישראל) and commits to providing for his wife in every way.¹⁴ The standard text of the Ketubah reads:
הוי לי לאנתו כדת משה וישראל ואנא אפלח ואוקיר ואיזון ואפרנס יתיכי ליכי כהלכות גוברין יהודאין דפלחין ומוקרין וזנין ומפרנסין לנשיהון בקושטא ויהיבנא ליכי מהר בתוליכי כסף זוזי מאתן דחזי ליכי מדאוריתא ומזוניכי וכסותיכי וסיפוקיכי ומיעל לותיכי כאורח כל ארעא
“Be my wife according to the practice of Moses and Israel, and I will cherish, honor, support and maintain you in accordance with the custom of Jewish husbands who cherish, honor, support and maintain their wives faithfully. And I here present you with the marriage gift of (virgins), (two hundred) silver zuzim, which belongs to you, according the the law of Moses and Israel; and I will also give you your food, clothing and necessities, and live with you as husband and wife according to universal custom.” Translation drawn from https://www.modernketubah.com/ketubah_translation.php. Accessed on January 8, 2024. It is not, as some have come to colloquially state, a divorce document or merely a financial document. This discussion about the ketubah often leads to an exchange regarding the merits of hanging the couple’s ketubah on the wall in their home. Rather than discussing this intuitively, students now discuss this fairly minor but socially prominent decision from a place of knowledge and understanding.

Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel
We are now able to return to the dispute in our Mishnah. We noted that only one of the three methods for betrothal is subject to dispute, that of kesef. Once contextualized, the reason for the uncertainty becomes clear. When Shimon ben Shetach transformed the payment of the mohar into the debt represented by the ketubah, this presented a question. If the actual funds are transferred at the conclusion of the marriage, what should the husband do at the time of kiddushin?¹⁵Friedman, “Marriage,” 35. From this perspective, the first lines of the Mishnah reflect two historical stages. The opening line is an ancient stratum teaching the three methods of betrothal.¹⁶The periodization of this Mishnah and, in fact, the entire kinyan series, is a matter of long standing debate. Here, we follow Epstein, who believes this to be a very early series of Mishnayot. Jacob Nahum Epstein, Introductions to Tannaitic Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1957), 52 [Hebrew]. The dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel that extends the reisha of the Mishnah, as we discussed earlier, represents a second stage, post-Shimon ben Shetach, where the rabbis debated the necessary kesef to perform the kiddushin. In class, we keep this discussion simple. Beit Shammai required the minimum biblical coin while Beit Hillel believed that the smallest currency, anything that qualifies as money or of monetary value, suffices.

Sometimes our instinct is to read through or put aside the textual oddity when reading a Mishnah such as this one. Our students would likely classify the machloket between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel as “random.” Rather than seeing these anomalies as difficulties, we should lean in and explore them; such “cracks” are often precisely the sources for enlightenment and insight into the dynamics of the matter.

Conclusion
This reading of the Mishnah still leaves us with questions. The language of kinyan still instinctively runs counter to our instincts. This question will be taken up in the first sugya, which serves as an introduction to Masekhet Kiddushin. Still, our unpacking of the layers embedded in this Mishnah opens us to the role that kinyan plays to ensure the long-term commitment of the husband in this marital relationship. In fact, one might suggest that the language that does not sit well with modern sensibilities was actually protecting women in the time of the Tanna’im. This aspect is further developed in the Bavli sugya, as I hope to describe in a different paper.

This approach to reading the Mishnah draws on two values highlighted by Rav Shagar: maintaining an awareness that the text has a history and having a desire to extract meaning from the Torah that we learn.¹⁷Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar), BeTorato Yehege (Alon Shevut: Mekhon Kitve ha-Rav Shagar, 2008), 203 near fn 337. Rav Shagar discusses the Rambam’s comparison of God’s wisdom through history with God’s wisdom through the development of taamei hamitzvot. We can contrast this approach with two other approaches to Gemara learning. Classical Gemara learning flattens the passage of time. The eternal nature of Torah places it above or outside of history. With this mindset, the learner must bridge the meaning gap between the ancient text and contemporary values by reducing one to the other. In this instance, if the concept of marriage as kinyan is foreign, we try to minimize or redefine kinyan such that it is and always has been symbolic. The gap must be bridged without resorting to factors of historical change. This can result in apologetic interpretations of the text. In contrast, academic Talmud study uncovers the history of the text, often precluding the possibility of finding contemporary religious and social meaning in the text. Following this model, we might conclude that marriage in antiquity was indeed transactional; the Mishnah teaches a different value set than our own. High school educators can inhabit a different space. As Rav Shagar notes, both classical lomdus and academic Talmud study put personal meaning to the side. In contrast, this approach seeks to draw on historical awareness in order to restore religious and social meaning to the Gemara by bringing both values and context to our understanding of the text.

In this model, our learning is agenda driven. Our agenda is to help students find religious and social meaning in their learning of Gemara; we aim to help students see the essential questions and the wide range of issues that Chazal engage in our sacred texts. Sometimes, difficult texts provide opportunities for new and meaningful understanding. As we have seen here, the first Mishnah in Masekhet Kiddushin serves as an example. The Mishnah provokes strong reactions from many students. Rather than avoid the challenge, we must engage it directly. In this instance, we discover that the kinyan served as a mechanism to better ensure the long-term commitment that is the foundation of intimate relationships. From learning this Mishnah, our students better understand that economics is an important factor in a strong marriage. They also see that the Torah speaks to actual circumstances and that Chazal responded to the vicissitudes of life and cultural change. As educators, we do our best when we bring both values and understanding to our learning of Torah.

• 1
  Reading Mishna in High School: Kiddushin Chapter 1, accessible at https://machonsiach.org/reading-mishna-in-high-school-kiddushin-chapter-1/
• 2
  The question of whether we should read Mishnah with the same sensitivity that we read Chumash is a thought provoking question that we return to throughout this opening sugya as well as in Tosafot s.v. האשה and Meiri ad loc.
• 3
  Choosing to “go backwards” by studying Rambam’s narrative of the history of Jewish marriage, which was written hundreds of years later, raises an interesting question regarding history, memory, and Torah study. In the high school classroom, we are not training historians of the Talmud. We do not seek to initiate them into the world of academic study. Our Gemara department mission statement describes our goal to “guide students to see the Talmudic process as… an attempt to balance commitment to texts, values and real world issues in the hope of internalizing not just the content but the approach itself as a model of living one’s life as a Jew.” We seek to initiate our students into the world of the Beit Midrash and its texts – where Rambam’s Mishneh Torah is central to our learning – in order to draw contemporary religious meaning and social value from the experience of learning the sugya.
• 4
  Christine Emba’s recent book on sexual ethics opens with a critique of the current hyper-focus on consent as being both necessary and inadequate. Chapter 6 is entitled “Our Sex Lives Aren’t Private.” These are precisely the weaknesses that Rambam is addressing. Christine Emba, Rethinking Sex (New York: Sentinel, 2022), 1-20, 113-131.
• 5
  See below regarding the significant commitment expressed through the biblical mohar.
  
• 6
  Kiddushin 12b
• 7
  Zev Farber, “Marrying Your Daughter to Her Rapist,” TheTorah.com, 2014, https://www.thetorah.com/article/marrying-your-daughter-to-her-rapist.
• 8
  Mekhilta Parshat Mishpatim, Masekhta d’Nezikin Parsha 17.
• 9
  Chazal, in Mekhilta DeRashbi, chapter 22, equated the cases of rape and seduction via a gezeirah shavah:
  אבל אי אתה יודע כמה הוא כסף הרי אני דן נאמר כאן כסף ונאמ’ באונס כסף. מה כסף האמור באונס חמשים כסף אף כסף האמור כאן חמשים כסף
  This example of gezeirah shavah is accessible to students and we should capitalize on that. They sense through the verbal similarity of the pesukim that the word כסף intuitively refers to the same type of payment in both instances.
• 10
  To be sure, in the Torah, this is commonly an arrangement between the future husband and the father of the bride. This is common in antiquity and through the Middle Ages. In a future article, I will highlight the sugya’s focus on the shift from the father of the bride to the bride herself.
  
• 11
  For assessments of the dollar value of the ketubah, see Rabbi Michael Broyde and Rabbi Jonathan Reiss, “The Value and Significance of the Ketubah,” Journal of Halakha and Contemporary Society 47, (2004): 101-124; published in Hebrew as “The Value of the Ketubah,” Tehumin 25, (2005):180-195.
• 12
  Mordechai Friedman, “Marriage and the Family in the Talmud,” in Yad la-Talmud, ed. Ephraim Urbach (Jerusalem: Yad la-Talmud, 1983), 31-36.
• 13
  Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, Parshat Misphatim:
  מהור ימהרנה לו לאשה. למה נאמר לפי שנאמר (דברים כב) ונתן האיש השוכב עמה יכול כשם שבתפוסה נותן מיד כך במפותה נותן מיד תלמוד לומר מהור ימהרנה לו לאשה מגיד שהוא עושה עליו מהר ואין מהר אלא כתובה שנאמר (בראשית לד:יב) הרבו עלי מאד מוהר ומתן ואתנה כאשר תאמרו אלי ותנו לי הנערה לאשה.
  
• 14
  The standard text of the Ketubah reads:
  הוי לי לאנתו כדת משה וישראל ואנא אפלח ואוקיר ואיזון ואפרנס יתיכי ליכי כהלכות גוברין יהודאין דפלחין ומוקרין וזנין ומפרנסין לנשיהון בקושטא ויהיבנא ליכי מהר בתוליכי כסף זוזי מאתן דחזי ליכי מדאוריתא ומזוניכי וכסותיכי וסיפוקיכי ומיעל לותיכי כאורח כל ארעא
  “Be my wife according to the practice of Moses and Israel, and I will cherish, honor, support and maintain you in accordance with the custom of Jewish husbands who cherish, honor, support and maintain their wives faithfully. And I here present you with the marriage gift of (virgins), (two hundred) silver zuzim, which belongs to you, according the the law of Moses and Israel; and I will also give you your food, clothing and necessities, and live with you as husband and wife according to universal custom.” Translation drawn from https://www.modernketubah.com/ketubah_translation.php. Accessed on January 8, 2024.
• 15
  Friedman, “Marriage,” 35.
• 16
  The periodization of this Mishnah and, in fact, the entire kinyan series, is a matter of long standing debate. Here, we follow Epstein, who believes this to be a very early series of Mishnayot. Jacob Nahum Epstein, Introductions to Tannaitic Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1957), 52 [Hebrew].
• 17
  Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar), BeTorato Yehege (Alon Shevut: Mekhon Kitve ha-Rav Shagar, 2008), 203 near fn 337. Rav Shagar discusses the Rambam’s comparison of God’s wisdom through history with God’s wisdom through the development of taamei hamitzvot.