Ketubot 71 - September 15, 19 Elul

This month's learning is sponsored by Debbie Gevir and her husband Yossi. “Thank you to Rabbanit Michelle, Hadran and the Hadran Zoom community for their kindness, support and care during a medically challenging year. May you all be zoheh to a healthy and happy תשפ"ג!” Rava and Abaye disagree about the difference between Rabbi Yehuda and the tanna kama in the Mishna regarding the first case of a man who vows to forbid his wife to derive benefit from him. Regarding the timeframe of 30 days, Rav and Shmuel disagree about whether it means that he took a vow to up to thirty days or was it without a time frame and the Mishna is saying that we give him a 30-day grace period to see if he will change his mind. They have the same disagreement on a previous Mishna where he forbids her from having intercourse with him. Why was it necessary to state both? A question is raised against Shmuel from the second case in the Mishna where he forbids her a type of fruit and there is no grace period. To which the Gemara answers that it must be that she was the one who took the vow and he ratified it. The opinion of the Mishna is that in that case, he is held responsible as without his ratification, the vow would not be valid. Unattributed opinions in the Mishna are generally attributed to rabbi Meir, However, in this case, it raises a problem as Rabbi Meir holds that in vows that a woman makes and the husband ratifies, the woman is the one responsible. The Gemara tries to reconcile this with a different source that shows who holds what on that issue. Some of the other opinions there also don't seem to correspond to opinions in our Mishna and the Gemara attempts to resolve them. Rabbi Yosi in the Mishna held that a poor woman whose husband vows that she cannot adorn herself indefinitely must divorce her and give her the ketuba money. This implies that a husband can annul those types of vows. However, elsewhere Rabbi Yosi holds that he cannot annul vows of this type - only ones that are considered affliction to the woman. The Gemara suggests that this could be in the category of matters between the husband and wife. It is not clear, however, that all would agree it goes into this category, in which case they suggest that we can explain the case somewhat differently - that he vowed to forbid her to have relations with him if she adorns herself. What is the time frame that would be permitted for them to stay married if she was poor (according to Rabbi Yosi) and why does he hold 30 days for a wealthy woman? If someone vows that his wife will be forbidden to visit her family - the amount of time before he would need to divorce her depends on whether her family lives in the city or not. If he vows that she will be forbidden to visit a house of mourning or house of celebration, he must divorce her immediately unless the crowd there is a "bad" crowd and he wants to keep her away from them. If he vows that she needs to do things that would embarrass her, he should divorce her immediately. In all these cases, she received her ketuba money. The Gemara brings two resolutions to a contradiction in the language of the Mishna in the case of the vow to forbid her from going to her father’s house.