Raboyseyee and Ladies,
Mankiller:
Welcome to Parshas Vayeshev, without a doubt, the Ois’s second most favorite parsha in the entire heylige Toirah. In case you’re wondering, Parshas Vayigash maintains its #1 slot; it’s only two weeks away.
Vaeyshev is mamish chock full of incredible and shocking storylines including Onanism, a roadside sexual encounter with someone dressed up and playing the part of a hooker, and oh so much more. Avada, we cannot ever forget that out parsha contains the Yoisef saga; basically, his not such well-behaved brothers wanted to kill him out of jealousy but wound up selling him into slavery; not a great display of brotherly love. Shoin, I said it and that’s taka how I have felt for many decades.
It’s the Ois’s 15th time around Vayeshev and guess what? He’s here with mamish brand-new material. Hard to believe but mamish emes.
Before we get to the topic of interest, I shall begin with a myseh shehoyo (a true story, not medrish). Some 35-40 years ago, a female relative approached my father, OBM asking him to help find her a husband. The issue at hand was that she had already buried at least two and was afraid that future potential mates would be nervous about marrying her for that reason. Was she a mankiller? In the heylige Gemora, such a woman is referred to as a katlonis (kat’lo’nis), again, a mankiller. My father agreed to accompany her to a local Rebbe where she would present her case for not being labeled as such. And shoin, as expected, the local rebbe heard and a few minutes later, decided that she was not a mankiller; one deceased husband was already elderly and sickly, you get the point. She walked out clean and had at least one or maybe two more husbands thereafter. The bottom Line: When our rebbes of today -and avada yesteryear, wish to find a legal loophole, of course they know how. One must avada (of course) know which Rebbe to ask what question to. As well and as we all know, it also depends on who’s asking.
So happens that our parsha covers the topic of the man-killer though we don’t find the terms katlonis mentioned. We shall read the text and what a few had to say. But first……….
Though Yoisef is the main character in the parsha – no matter your religion, everyone knows what befell him- the heylige Toirah interrupts its own Yoisef narrative at riviee aliya (4th reading) with another just as incredible storyline. The entire aliya is dedicated to Yehudah, his Canaanite wife, the children they bore, the untimely death of two of his kids, his plan to save his third from a similar fate and the RBSO’s plan to use the services of Yehudah’s own daughter-in-law who would end up becoming the progenitor of Dovid Hamelech (King David) and of the Moshiach himself, may he make an appearance one day soon. Well, blow me down and let us now connect a few dots. As an aside, the heylige Toirah does not provide the name of Yehudah’s wife- maybe it’s none of our business- but does specifically tell us that she was the daughter of a Canaanite. In other words, she was a shiksa through and through but hey, this all went down before the heylige Toirah was gifted to us at our wedding to the RBSO, before Revelation. Such marriages were not yet verboten. Of course, our sages of the medrish were not overly excited to read that Yehudah married a shiksa (as did Yoisef and likely all the others) and decided that Canaanite meant that her father was not a goy, he was instead a Canaanite merchant. The bottom line: when the medrish wants to clean a person up, they were amazingly creative. Loit’s two daughters who took turns fornicating with their own father whom they get drunk on two consecutive nights, got cleaned up: They were holy girls but trying to repopulate the world. They needed a tool, Loit had one and shoin. Reuvain and Dovid Hamelech get cleaned as do the shvotim. On the other hand, they were also experts at sullying others they did not care much about. On those they disliked, they piled up more schmutz than the Steel Dossier. The bottom line: Our sages of the medrish were spinmeisters and likely the forerunners for today’s political operatives on both sides. They spin us until we are mamish dizzy.
Yehudah has three sons with Bat Shua, his Canaanite wife: Er, Onen, and Shelah. When Er grows up, Yehudah chooses a woman named Tamar to be his wife. But Er does evil, and the RBSO strikes him down: Let’s read Bereishis 38:6
וַיִּקַּח יְהוּדָה אִשָּׁה לְעֵר בְּכוֹרוֹ וּשְׁמָהּ תָּמָר. לח:ז וַיְהִי עֵר בְּכוֹר יְהוּדָה רַע בְּעֵינֵי יְ־הוָ וַיְמִתֵהוּ יְ־הוָ.
Yehudah got a wife for Er his first-born; her name was Tamar. 38:7 But Er, Yehudah’s first-born, was displeasing to the RBSO, and the RBSO took his life.
What sin did Er commit? The heylige Toirah does not tell us, we are clueless mamish, but we must imagine that if the RBSO took him out so quickly- he was introduced in posik 3 and is dead but a few pisukim later, posik 7 to be exact. It must have been a grievous sin. But not to worry because when the heylige Toirah is silent, our exegetes sprang into action, created a sin to fit the sentence; let us read what they decided:
Says Rabbeinu Bechya, azoy: Because the heylige Toirah states “He killed him also” when it came to the death of Yehudah’s second son Oinon, the word גם (also) is proof that Er and Oinon died for the same sin. Says the heylige Gemora Yevomis 34 that it is easy to understand why Oinon should have died for this sin seeing he had violated his father’s instructions to marry Tamar and to have children by her (see posik 8 above). He thought that these children would not be accounted as his own but as his deceased brother’s Er, hence he deliberately wasted his semen. The question is why did Er act in such a fashion? Why did he not want children? Says the heylige Gemora that he did not want Tamar to become disfigured through her pregnancy. The Rashbam adds this: He deliberately wasted his semen to prevent his wife from becoming pregnant, prioritizing her physical beauty over progeny.
Next: Yehudah then has Oinon (אוֹנָן) marry Tamar through yibum (in a levirate marriage) -as an aside not yet a mitzvah known to anyone- so that their firstborn son would count as Er’s descendent. Oinon seemingly agrees to marry her, but performs coitus interruptus so as not to produce an heir, and shoin, the RBSO strikes him down too:בראשית לח:י וַיֵּרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְ־הוָ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה וַיָּמֶת גַּם אֹתוֹ.
What he did was displeasing to the RBSO, and the RBSO took his life also.
What the hec is coitus interruptus you ask as if you don’t know, chazir that you are? Says AI (Artificial Intelligence) the latest of all exegetes who know as much as did Rashi, maybe even more, azoy: “Yes, “coitus interruptus,” also known as the withdrawal method, is considered a method of family planning, although it’s considered one of the least effective methods due to the risk of sperm leakage before ejaculation and is not recommended as a primary form of birth control.” And now you know!
At this point, Yehudah is down to one son but frum as he is, would have normally asked his last son to marry Tamar in yet another levirate marriage, but does he? Not! Instead, he concocts a story – he’s good at conniving and let’s not forget how he convinced his brothers not to kill Yoisef but instead sell him into slavery. Yehudah fears that Tamar is a mankiller katlonis. She is -in his mind- responsible for the death of his two older sons. What to do? He tricks her and let us read veyter from the heylige Toirah:
בראשית לח:יא וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוּדָה לְתָמָר כַּלָּתוֹ שְׁבִי אַלְמָנָה בֵית אָבִיךְ עַד יִגְדַּל שֵׁלָה בְנִי כִּי אָמַר פֶּן יָמוּת גַּם הוּא כְּאֶחָיו…
Then Yehudah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Stay as a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up”—for he thought, “He too might die like his brother’s.”
The bottom line: Yehudah sends Tamar away in order to eliminate her as a threat to his only surviving son. Let’s check out Rashi who says this:
רש”י בראשית לח:יא כי אמר פן ימות – מוחזקת היא זו שימותו אנשיה.
“For he thought: ‘He too might die…’ – she was assumed to be a woman whose husbands die.”
Yehudah thought that Tamar possessed some malevolent power that killed his two sons, ober those who read or heard this story before -who hasn’t- knows better because the heylige Toirah is explicit that it was the RBSO who killed Er and Oinon for their sins. Farkert (the opposite is true): The RBSO really loved Tamar as He guided her along the road where she provided roadside assistance -if you chap- for a lonely Yehudah and from this union, we can trace important figure like Dovid Hamelech and the Moshiach! Well, blow me down with a feather because it does epes appear to the Ois and so he has stated over and again that the RBSO -many times- has selected surprise figures -some with many faults- for leadership, kingship and more. Perhaps their weaknesses and flaws are davka what the RBSO preferred. How good is this news for most of you? Amazing and givaldig.
Let’s review: Yehudah thought that Tamar was possessed and had some ability to kill men who had bedded her. Two of her husbands were dead. And with that background, let’s circle back to the katlonis mentioned above and read what the heylige Gemora had to say about this person. Who carries this moniker of shame? A woman who was twice widowed is referred to as a “katlonis,” a “deadly” woman. The heylige Gemora rules that a katlonis should not marry a third time, based on the presumption that when tragedy has struck twice, it is likely to strike a third time in identical circumstances. In Gemora parlance, this is called a chazoko. That being stated, there is the katlonis loophole. She is considered a katlonis only if the two husbands that died were from one marriage after the other. A woman is not rendered a katlonis, however, if there were other marriages between the death of one husband and the other. One divorce between dead husbands is helpful. With that information, let us revisit Yehudah.
It was for this reason that Yehuda did not allow his daughter-in-law Tamar to marry his son Shela after her first two husbands (also his sons) had died. From this precedent some authorities maintain that the concept of katlonis is actually one which derives from the Toirah and is not merely a custom or Rabbinical enactment. The bottom line: Was Tamar then a katlonis? Not so fast and there is some difficulty labeling her a katlonis, because the heylige Toirah itself states that her first two husbands, Er and Oinon, died because of their own sins. Bedroom activities did not enter into the equation. Veyter.
There are two opinions in the heylige Gemora as to what exactly causes a woman’s husband to die. According to one opinion there is something mystical in their intimate relationship which causes her husband’s death. Exactly what that means, ver veyst? According to the other opinion, it is a result of a woman’s natural bad luck which brings upon such misfortunes. For all practical purposes, it is generally the first opinion which is considered to be more authoritative. For example, a woman whose first two husbands died after they were formally married but before the marriage was sexually consummated is not deemed a katlonis. No sex, no katlonis moniker. Veyter.
A woman is only considered to be a katlonis if her two deceased husbands both died of natural causes. If, however, one of the husbands was murdered or died due to a work accident, the woman is not deemed a katlonis. Similarly, if one of the husbands died at an advanced old age, the death of that husband will not render a woman a katlonis. So too, a woman who marries a man who is known to have a pre-existing health condition and later dies as a result of it, will not be considered a katlonis, either. As an aside, health conditions also include obesity which is known to trigger subsequent health complications. And hear this: According to some authorities, a woman who is independently wealthy is not subject to any katlonis considerations or consequences. Rich or poor, it’s good to have money.
The bottom line: We don’t find the word or term katlonis in the heylige Toirah. Oib azoy (if so), who introduced this entire katlonis subject? We first read of the prohibition to marry a killer-wife in the heylige Gemora, Yevomis (64b), where our sages discuss the concept of legal presumption (the chazoko), meaning the legal consequences when repeated incidents constitute a pattern. What happens when baby boys die following circumcision, with women whose husbands have died, and with Oxen that gore repeatedly.
Rebbe Yehudah HaNasi (the Prince) and his father, Rebbe Shimon ben Gamliel, debate how many sons need to die after circumcision, two or three, in order to establish a chazoko so that later sons should not be circumcised. They have the same debate regarding the katlonis:
בבלי יבמות סד: [מינכן 95] נשאת לראשון ומת לשני ומת לשלישי לא תנשא דברי ר’ ר”שב”ג או[מר]: לשלישי תנשא לרביעי לא תנשא.
If a woman marries a man and he dies, and she marries a second man and he dies, she may not be married to a third husband: These are the words of Rebbe (Yehudah HaNasi). Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: She may be married to a third husband, but may not be married to a fourth husband. Rebbe Yoichonon, follows the position that three constitutes a precedent. Abaye, he famous for always fighting with and arguing with Rovo all over the Gemora, relies on this himself to marry Choma, a twice-widowed woman, but he then dies: let us check it out.
בבלי יבמות סד: [מינכן 95] סמך עילויה אביי ואזל נסבה לחומה ברתיה דאסי בריה דרב יצחק בריה דרב יהוד’ דנסבה רחבא דפומבדית’ ומית ונסבה רב יצחק בריה דרבה בר בר חנה ומית ונסבה איהו נמי ושכיב.
Abaye relied upon him and went and married Coma, the daughter of Issi son of Rav Yitzchok son of Rav Yehudah. Rachba of Pumbedisa married her and died. Then Rav Yitzchok son of Rabba bar bar Channa married her and died. Then he (Abaye) also married her, and died.
The heylige Gemora explains the reason for the prohibition:
בבלי יבמות סד: [מינכן 95] א”ל רב מרדכי לרב אשי: אמ[ר] אבימי מהגרוני’ משמיה דרבא: מעין גורם. ורב אשי אמ[ר]: מזל גורם
Rav Mordechai said to Rav Ashi: Thus said Avimi from Hagrunia in the name of Rav Huna: “Her maʿayan (“spring,” i.e., uterus) is the cause.” But Rav Ashi said: “Mazal (“astrological constellation”) is the cause.”
Rav Huna sees the death of the husbands as due to something in her body; the sex kills them. Watch out: DANGER BELOW! Rav Ashi sees it as an astrological problem, she was born under the wrong constellation. So happens that such belief in the power of the stars and their movements to affect the affairs of humankind was widespread in Jewish antiquity. And now you know.
Ober, what about in our times? Do any women you know fit the katlonis bill? The bottom lines: Historically, our rabbis we’re never too quick to enforce any katlonis restrictions and seemingly never took any steps to block such marriages. One of the justifications for this approach was the fact that the chance of a third or fourth husband mysteriously dying is so unlikely that opposing such a marriage is not warranted. It is also noted that finding a mate is not an easy task, and as such, we should take an encouraging disposition towards those who have decided to get married notwithstanding any katlonis concerns. Indeed, although one may want to think twice before marrying a katlonis there is certainly no obligation for such couples to divorce. Enter at your own risk and buyer beware!
Even the Rambam, who is of the opinion that one should not marry a katlonis writes that “there is no prohibition involved at all” if one chooses to do so. It might even be that the Rambam only counsels those who believe in superstitions not to marry a katlonis while all others need not worry at all. It is also argued that a young woman who is declared a katlonis and as a result is disqualified from marrying or is severely limited in here choice of potential marriage partners is likely adopt a lifestyle incompatible with halacha, which is certainly far worse than any katlonis considerations. Death-by-marriage is one of those things whose risks are considered to be negligible.
And we close with this myseh shohoyo, another true story, one you likely never heard of. Is that last statement true? Let’s find out. In the Second Temple period book, Tobias marries his seven-times widowed cousin upon the advice of the malach (angel) Raphael. Despite the heylige Gemora prohibits marrying twice widowed women, for fear they are man killer, he plunges in. Who was Tobit? Says Wikipedia, azoy: “The Book of Tovit” is an apocryphal Jewish work from the 3rd or early 2nd century BCE, which describes G-d’s protection of the covenant community. The book of Tobit is one of the Deuterocanonical books, also known as the Apocrypha. There is no evidence that the text was ever “canonical” in the Jewish tradition. That being stated and true or not, it’s a great katlonis story and read.
The book tells the story of Tobias, the son of Tovit, a righteous man from the tribe of Naphtali, who goes on a journey from Ninvey (capital of Assyria) to Ecbatana (capital of Media) to seek his family’s fortune.
His cousin Sarah lives in Ecbatana. She is the virtuous daughter of Raguel, who’s life has been plagued by the demon Asmodeus—known in Rabbinic sources as Ashmadai, “chief of demons” who had killed seven of her husbands on their respective wedding nights, before the couple had a chance to consummate:
Tobit 3:7 On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by one of her father’s female slaves. 3:8 For she had been married to seven husbands, and the wicked demon Asmodeus had killed each of them before they had been with her as is customary for wives. Even her own maidservant accuses her of being the killer:
So the female slave said to her, “You are the one who kills your husbands! See, you have already been married to seven husbands and have not borne the name of a single one of them. 3:9 Why do you beat us? Because your husbands are dead? Go with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours!”
On the way, Tobias is joined by a companion named Azariah, who is actually the angel Raphael (the name means “G-d Heals”), one of the RBSO’s seven “good” angels. Azariah/Raphael suggests to Tobias that he should marry his cousin Sarah, but Tobias is wary, and shares his fear with his companion.[9] Azariah/Raphael responds by teaching Tobias how to defeat the demon:
Tobit 6:17 When you enter the bridal chamber, take some of the fish’s liver and heart and put them on the embers of the incense. An odor will be given off; 6:18 the demon will smell it and flee and will never be seen near her anymore.
Tobias takes the advice and proposes marriage. Sarah’s parents, Raguel and Edna, are ecstatic that Tobias wishes to marry their daughter. Nevertheless, Raguel prepares a grave for Tobias so he could bury him quickly without people knowing that his daughter killed another husband:
Tobit 8:9 …Raguel arose and called his servants to him, and they went and dug a grave, 8:10 for he said, “It is possible that he will die, and we will become an object of ridicule and derision.” The angel’s recipe works, of course, and Tobias and Sarah live happily ever after. The end! And the lesson? A bad fish smell -if you chap- isn’t always a bad thing.
As with Tamar in our parsha, Sarah is not at fault; she is not a katlonis. The text feels sorry for her and does not judge her. Obviously, Tovit knows of no prohibition to marry a woman widowed twice or even seven times. Enter at your own risk!
A gittin Shabbis!
The Heylige Oisvorfer Ruv
Yitz Grossman
