Resources for Yevamos daf 84

1.      The גמרא says that a woman cannot marry a כהן who is not allowed to be married to her, even though the main איסור was said to him and not to her. We learn this from the דרשה of לא יקחו. תוספות in נדרים דף צ ע"ב in ד"ה חזרו לומר quotes the גמרא there that says that a woman who is married to a כהן who says to her husband that she was נאנסה and forbidden to him is not believed because we are afraid that she is just trying to get out of the marriage because she is interested in marrying someone else. תוספות asks why she isn’t believed at least in regards to herself since we have a principle of שויה אנפשה חתיכה דאיסורא (person can אסור themselves). תוספות brings ר׳ אליעזר ממיץ who answers that we never find that a זונה can’t marry a כהן, it’s just a כהן cant marry her. If so, even according to her own words she isn’t אסור to him. תוספות asks on this תירוץ that it seems to be against our גמרא that says the איסור is on both of them! (תוספות himself answers that the חכמים were עוקר the איסור because of the fear that she is just trying to get out of the marriage). In explanation of the מחלוקת between the ר׳ אליעזר ממיץ and תוספות, the חתם סופר there in נדרים explains that ר׳ אליעזר ממיץ understands that the only reason the Torah created the איסור for the woman to marry the כהן was to not be מחלל his קדושה. In this case, since he is allowed to be with her, it won’t be מחלל his קדושה in which case she does not have an איסור. In other words, he understands the איסור to be modeled after a לפני עור concept where if there is no issue for him then there is no issue for her either. תוספות disagrees and holds the איסור on the woman is completely independent. Therefore, if she says she is a זונה then she can’t marry him because of her own איסור.

2.      The ראשונים discuss why the גמרא needed to say that the reason a זונה couldn’t marry a כהן  was because she had an איסור of לא יקחו. Why didn’t the גמרא mention that she has the איסור of לפני עור לא תתן מכשול? The רמב"ן in his second answer says a tremendous יסוד: there is no איסור of לפני עור if the person placing the מכשול is themselves not חייב in that עברה. The מאירי disagrees and says לפני עור applies to any case where you are causing your friend to stumble and is not relevant to whether you have the איסור yourself or not. The קובץ הערות in סימן מ"ח אות ט explains that the רמב"ן and מאירי are having a fundamental מחלוקת as to how the איסור of לפני עור works. The רמב"ן (at least in this תירוץ) seems to understand that the איסור of לפני עור is a חלק of the איסור itself. In other words, every עברה contains an איסור of לפני עור as part of the עברה. Therefore, if you aren’t in the מצווה in the עברה then there is no איסור of לפני עור. (To clarify, one can certainly not give wine to a נזיר even if they themselves aren’t a נזיר nor be מקדש  a גרושה  to a כהן because they are still שייך to the עברה even if in practice it doesn’t apply to them). However, the מאירי disagrees and says that לפני עור is just a general איסור to not make your friend stumble. Therefore, it would not matter whether you were מצווה in the לאו yourself or not since you are in fact causing him to stumble.

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