Resources for Yevamos daf 96

1.     The גמרא says that the חכמים made a ביאת קטן to count like מאמר of a גדול. There is a very important רמב"ן here on the משנה that gives three possible explanations for what that means. The first is רש"י here who says that the ביאה of a child who is nine years old is completely invalid מדאורייתא in terms of יבום. However, the חכמים made it valid on a דרבנן level. The רמב"ן doesn’t like that since there are other גמרות (like in קידושין דף י"ט) that make is sounds like it is קונה מדאורייתא since it says “הואיל מדאורייתא קניא ליה”. Furthermore, he feels the גמרא there is משמע that the חכמים knocked it down to מאמר as opposed to bumping it up from invalid completely to valid מדרבנן. The second פּשט he brings from רש"י in קידושין דף י"ט is that ביאה בקטן is only קונה מדאורייתא but only for things like ירושה but not to make the יבמה his full wife. Theרמב"ן  doesn’t like this either since how could it be that he is קונה מדאורייתא but only for things that aren’t directly related to יבום? Therefore he suggests a third פּשט that ביאת קטן is קונה מדאורייתא for יבום related דינים but that the חכמים knocked it down to only be like מאמר. He explains that the reason his ביאה is קונה on a level of דאורייתא is because דעת isn’t required to be קונה a יבמה. The בית שמואל in סימן ק"ע ס"ק י"ב asks an interesting question related to this: the גמרא says that the קידושין (a.k.a. מאמר) of a קטן works מדרבנן by a יבמה. The question is why did the חכמים make this תקנה? We normally assume מאמר was created so that people would not come to think that if קידושין doesn’t count by יבום then it doesn’t count by a regular woman. However, by a child it really doesn’t work by a regular woman so why make a גזרה? He suggests that if you hold like the רמב"ן or רש"י in קידושין then we can answer that the גזרה is the inverse: since קידושין is not valid by a regular woman, we are afraid that a person will think ביאת קטן by יבום is also not valid at all and the brother will come to do יבום after his younger brother did a ביאה. Therefore, they made a גזרה that even מאמר works by a קטן to his יבמה. However, if you hold like רש"י on our דף that a child’s יבום is completely invalid מדאורייתא, then there would have been no purpose in making a תקנה that קידושין should work by a יבמה. He leaves it צ"ע.

2.     The גמרא says that there is no תקנת נישואיןfor a nine year old boy with a woman. However, תוספות in ד"ה נשא says there is no איסור for them to get married nor is it a ביאת זנות. In fact, it is even a מצוה as it says וידעת כי שלום אוהליך. The רמב"ם  in הלכות איסורי ביאה פּרק כ"א הל׳ כ"ה disagrees and say that it is considered זנות. The מחלוקת seems to be how understand that גמרא in סנהדרין that תוספות is quoting that says a person should marry off their children סמוך לפּרקן. The בית יוסף in סימן א says that the רמב"ם  understood that to mean that a person should marry off their children immediately after they turn 13 for a boy and 12 for a girl. However, תוספות understands סמוך to mean less than bar mitzvah. The ב"ח suggests that תוספות seems to be משמע that only at 12 years old where he is סמוך לפּרקו is it מותר but at nine years old it would be considered זנות like the רמב"ם . The בית שמואל in ס"ק ד disagrees and explains that תוספות meant as follows: we see from the fact that it is a מצוה to marry off children less than בר מצוה age even though they weren’t מתקן a נישואין at age 12 that it must be that you can have a marriage which isn’t legally binding which is not considered a ביאת זנות and even considered a מצוה. It is true however that younger than “סמוך לפּרקן” would not be a מצוה but would not be זנות either.

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