[Avodah] Boaz's nisayon with Ruth

[Marty Bluke via Avodah]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 9:29 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> I dunno... Yitzchaq meets Rivqa, she literally falls for him. They
> try pulling the sister-wife thing, but they blow it because "Yitzchak
> metzacheik es Rivqa ishto".

Truthfully, I never understood that whole story. Avraham was very well
known generally and certainly by Avimelech and it was common knowledge that
Avraham had a "miracle" son at the age of 100 but no daughters. How could
this ruse have possible worked?  Additionally, how could Yitzchak and Rivka
have been meshamesh bayom where someone could see them?

In any case, with Rivka it doesn't necessarily mean romantic love. In fact,
the common derasha about Yitzchak and Rivka is that the love only came
after he married her and brought her into his tent.


On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 11:44 PM, Simi Peters <familyp2 at actcom.net.il>
wrote:
> Boaz was a tsaddik, but prior to the establishment of the issur of yihud
> with a penuya, relations with an unmarried, ritually pure woman might not
> have carried the same halakhic or social stigma as it does today.

The Rambam writes at the beginning of hilchos ishus that after matan torah
any biah that is not l'shem kiddushin is an issur d'oraysa and he would get
malkos. That halacha was certainly around at the time of Boaz.


On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 9:38 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 08:58:34AM +0300, Marty Bluke wrote:
>: The Rambam writes at the beginning of hilchos ishus that after matan torah
>: any biah that is not l'shem kiddushin is an issur d'oraysa and he would get
>: malkos. That halacha was certainly around at the time of Boaz.

> Only "certainly" if Boaz held like the Rambam rather than the Ramban.

Even the Ramban who says that there is no technical issur d'oraysa,
would probably declare this kind of behaviour is naval birshus hatorah
and certainly not what the Gadol Hador should be doing.