[Avodah] Boaz's nisayon with Ruth

Zev Sero via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sun Jun 19 20:44:50 PDT 2016


On 06/19/2016 03:21 PM, Ben Waxman via Avodah wrote:
> Simple pshat of the halacha in question. The Taz is commenting on the
> halacha that states that one has to wait 7 days after proposing
> before marrying a woman.

There is no such halacha, and he is not commenting on it.  The halacha
in question is that when a woman agrees to get married she is presumed
to have become a niddah, and must therefore count 7 days like any niddah.
(Note that it's not the proposal that triggers this, nor is it her verbal
acceptance, but her internal decision to accept it.)

The Taz quotes the Maggid Mishneh that this is midrabanan, and says that
this explains two problems we would have if it were mid'oraisa.  One is
Yehuda and Tamar: *not* how they could have sex, but how she could have
told him that she was tehora, when by definition she has just become temeiah.
The second was Boaz and Ruth: how they could have slept in the same bed.

He says this *explicitly* so I don't understand how anyone can possibly
misunderstand it.


> When people get married, they don't just
> sleep in the same bed. That is where the question starts and
> finishes, nothing about literally sleeping together.

Again, you are contradicting the very Taz you are quoting.  He says
in so many words that the problem we would have with Boaz and Ruth, if
this halacha were mid'oraisa, is that she entered his bed.  How can
you claim that's not his concern, when he says it is?



-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis



More information about the Avodah mailing list