If it weren’t for my Kiddushin …
Comedian Lewis Black had a bit on what causes brain aneurysms: you’ll hear something so incomprehensible, your brain will actually burst blood in all directions.
Black relays that he heard a woman once say “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” He says if you stop and actually think about it, you will have an aneurysm.
My Gemara today is an aneurysm-inducing Gemara.
If man says “Be married to me from now and after 30 days,” and another man comes before 3o days, she is married and not married.
Rav and Shmuel argue on this.
Rav holds that the man was either holding that the man meant the marraige to be conditional after 30 days (“provided that 30 days pass, you will be retroactively married to me from today” … called a Tanai) or a retraction (“I take back what I said about being married to you today. I really want to marry you 30 days from today” … called a Chazara). If the man meant Tanai, and the second man married her, then after 30 days the first marriage will have retroactively taken place and the second never happened; if the man meant Chazara, and the second man married her, then his marriage takes effect. Rav cannot be sure which case was intended with the language “From now and after 30 days,” so it is suffik (in a permanent state of doubt).
Shmuel holds that it can only be a Tanai. The marraige is in a suffik status from the time man #2 marries her through Day 30. Come Day 30, the first marriage takes effect and the second immediately ceases to have ever taken place.
This is all easy enough. Rav and Shmeul both have sources from past sages to support their positions; a similar case was argued between the Chuchumim and Rebbe in the matter of Get (divorce): if a man says to his wife “be divorced from me from today and after my death,” the Chuchumim holds this is a suffik Get and Rebbe says it is a functional Tanai. Fine. Rav and Shmuel can agree to disagree.
Rebbe Yochanon provides the “if it weren’t for my horse…” position.
Comes Rebbe Yochanon and says the case of the marriage “from now and after 30 days” is neither Tanai nor Chazara. Rebbe Yochanon says it is in fact a marriage that takes a full 30 days to enact. On Day 1, 1/30th of her is married, on Day 2, 2/30ths, and so on. If a second man wants to marry her on day 2, only 1/30th of her is married, so he can come in and marry her.
100 men can come in and marry her. Or more.
Rebbe Yochanon describes his position by comparing it to a bricklayer building a wall. A man will not lay one brick directly on top of another, because the row will fall over, and will knock others down, too. He will overlap each brick such that part of each brick is resting on two others. When he does this, he pushes bricks out to the periphery, and creates an empty space for another man to lay bricks. This happens indefinitely, allowing for my bricklayers to lay more bricks. Until the wall is finished, there will always be more empty space to lay more bricks. This is like a 100 men being able to marry a woman before her time-elongated marriage is finalized.
Do not try to understand this. You will have a brain aneurysm.
Just know that if you plan on making kiddushin with a woman, it is best to be concise. And know that the sages describe marriage as a brick wall.
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Watch Lewis Black tell over “If it weren’t for my Horse ...”
