Resources for Yevamos daf 55
1. The גמרא says that העראה is קונה in almost all cases. The קובץ שערים in חלק ב סימן י׳ אות ו asks the following חקירה about העראה: Is העראה a type of ביאה in its own right or is it just considered a גמר ביאה even though the person didn’t quite do it. The נפקא מינה he discusses there is the following case: the גמרא in קידושין דף ע"ח says that if a כהן is בא על אחותו, he makes her into a זונה with that ביאה but she doesn’t become a חללה unless he is בועל her a second time. The רשב"א (brought in the שיטה מקובצת) there asks why she doesn’t become a זונה from the העראה and then a חללה from the גמר ביאה? He answers that you can’t divide one ביאה into two איסורים. רב אלחנן זצ"ל explains that the רשב"א must have held that העראה is just something that counts like גמר ביאה so you cant make it into two ביאות. Many point out that the other ראשונים there that don’t answer that way must hold that it is its own ביאה.
2. The גמרא learns out that most עריות are אסור whether they are from the mother’s side or the father’s side with the exception of דודתו which is only from the father’s side. The גמרא attempts to prove this each time by saying "ודין הוא...נאמר". The גמרא also learns that העראה works by חייבי לאווין דכהונה and הייבא עשה from דרשות. The ריטב"א asks the obvious question: what happened to the concept of אין עונשין מן הדין (you can’t punish based on a קל וחומר, מה מצינו, and similar דרשות)? He answers with a יסוד for all of ש"ס: we only say אין עונשין מן הדין when the Torah explicitly says case A and we want to expand it to say case B. However, when the Torah never specified anything, then we can use something like a קל וחומר since it is just a גילוי מילתא. Therefore, by many עריות it doesn’t say explicitly if it was from the mother’s side, father’s side, or both, so for that you can use a דרשה. But for a sister where it explicitly says “your sister from (only) your mother’s side and your sister (only) your father’s side” then you need a real ריבוי הקרא to include it. This sheds light on a famous גמרא about this topic: the גמרא in מכות דף ה ע"ב asks why you can’t use a קל וחומר by עדים זומממין to say that if עדים זומממין get killed if they only tried to kill someone, certainly they should get killed if they succeed in killing someone. The גמרא answers אין עונשין מן הדין. According to the ריטב"א it should come out that the פּסוק of “כאשר זמם לעשות לאחיו” is considered to be explicit that the פּסוק is only talking about a case where the person the עדים זומממין testified about is still alive. The משנה there in fact says is the משמעות.
3. The גמרא has a הוה אמינא that קינוי works for anything the husband is מקפּיד on and the קמ"ל is that it doesn’t work. There is an important question about how to learn the גמרא’s מסקנא: is the גמרא saying that קינוי has nothing to do with קפּידת הבעל and the only thing that matters is if it will make her אסורה לבעלה or is the קמ"ל that was our original assumption correct that it is תלוי בקפּידת הבעל and you will need a special מיעוט for every case where the בעל is מקפּיד but it isn’t a ביאת איסור. The בית הלוי in חלק ב׳, סימן מ׳ אות ד discusses this question and says it is a מחלוקת רמב"ם and תוספות. The רמב"ם in הלכות סוטה פּרק א׳ הל׳ ו says that if someone is מקנא their wife from a child who is less than nine years old, the קינוי isn’t valid because of a special מיעוט הקרא that he brings. The משנה למלך there asks why you need a פּסוק when even if she was מזנה with a child that age she won’t be אסורה לבעלה. He answers that the רמב"ם must hold that everything is תלוי בקפּידת הבעל so קינוי should have worked and you need a מיעוט for anything that wont work. However, the בית הלוי points out that תוספות in סוטה דף כ"ו ד"ה אבל says that the מיעוט goes on an older child (say 10 years old) who’s מעשה ביאה would make her אסורה לבעלה. תוספות must hold that it is inconceivable that the מיעוט is for a small child since that would not make her אסורה לבעלה which means he holds it isn’t תלוי at all in the husband’s הקפּדות but rather what would make her אסורה לבעלה and what would not.
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