Kiddushin 41a — the Talmud in English

Bar Kappara expounded: An irascible person

has achieved nothing but irascibility.

That is, he gained nothing, but only lost the leanness of his body.

And

as for

a good person, they let him taste from the fruit of his deeds.

And every

person

who is neither versed in Scripture, nor in Mishna, nor in proper conduct,

one should

be forbidden by vow to derive benefit from him!

For if he is not occupied with one of these, he is occupied only with frivolity, and one is obligated to distance oneself from such a person,

as it is stated

at the beginning of the Book of Psalms, “Fortunate is the man who”:

“did not sit in the seat of scoffers.”

And

his seat

of this person is

the seat of scoffers:

We shall return to you, The Woman Is Acquired chapter

Mishna:

The man betroths

the woman

by himself,

that is: he may betroth her himself

and

also

through his agent [

or by means of an agent].

And likewise

the woman becomes betrothed through him [

by herself],

and through her agent.

And likewise

the man betroths his daughter when she is a na'ara,

by himself and through his agent.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: The man betroths by himself and through his agent:

And we raise an objection: Why did the tan­​nay need to state “by himself and through his agent,” for

now, if through his agent he betroths, by himself

is it necessary [

all the more so]? And the tan­​nay should have stated only: “The man betroths through his agent”!?

Said

he answered,

Rav Yosef:

For this reason the tan­​nay stated “by himself and through his agent”: in order to place his own betrothal before betrothal through his agent, and to teach us:

It is a mitzva for him to do it himself more than through his agent.

And the Gemara brings examples from the amoraim who were careful about this:

As in this

and as we find

that Rav Safra —

himself, and not through members of his household —

would scorch a head [

he would singe the head of an animal to remove its hairs] in honor of Shabbat, in order to prepare himself to fulfill the mitzva of the Shabbat meal.

And likewise we find with

Rava,

who

salted shibuta [

salted the fish] in honor of Shabbat, and they did this because “it is a mitzva for him to do it himself more than through his agent.”

There are those who say:

In this case,

in betrothal,

there is also a prohibition in it [

there is also a prohibition against betrothing through an agent], when he is able to betroth her himself; and it is for this reason that the tan­​nay stated: “by himself and through his agent,” and not for Rav Yosef’s reason —

and

as Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav! For Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav:

It is forbidden for a man to betroth a woman until he has seen her, lest he see something unattractive in her

after she has already become betrothed to him,

and she become repulsive to him

and he hate her,

and the Merciful One

after all

said: “

You shall love your fellow as yourself”; therefore he should see her first, before betrothing her, because even if he sees something unattractive in her and for that reason does not betroth her, he does not hate her, since she is not betrothed to him.

therefore, he should see her first, before betrothing her. For even if he sees something unattractive in her and therefore does not betroth her, he will not hate her, since she is not betrothed to him.

And when Rav Yosef’s statement: “

It is a mitzva for him to do it himself more than through his agent,” which implies: it is a mitzva and not a prohibition,

was stated, it was stated concerning the latter clause!

For we learned in the latter clause:

The woman becomes betrothed through him and through her agent,

and regarding this too there is a difficulty:

Now, if through her agent she becomes betrothed, is it necessary [to state] through herself!?

And concerning this

Rav Yosef said,

that our Mishna teaches us:

It is a mitzva for her —

to assist her husband in fulfilling the mitzva of “Be fruitful and multiply

” —

more than through her agent; and

as in this: Rav Safra scorched a head, and Rava salted shibuta —

But in this case —

in the betrothal of a woman through an agent —

there is no prohibition in it [

there is no prohibition in this for the woman], that she should become betrothed without seeing him,

and as Resh Lakish taught,

and for this reason Rav Yosef said that there is only a mitzva here and not a prohibition

! For Resh Lakish said:

It is a proverb that women say about an unsuccessful husband: “Nevertheless,

it is better to sit as two together [

better to sit as two bodies together]

than to sit as a widow [

than to sit as a widow without a husband],” and if so, even if she sees something unattractive in him, she will not withdraw her love from him.

We learned in the Mishna:

The man betroths his daughter when she is a na'ara, by himself and through his agent:

And we explain:

When she is a na'ara, yes,

indeed, he betroths her, whereas

when she is a minor, no,

the father should not betroth her; and this is not because he is unable to betroth her, for certainly the father has the right to his minor daughter’s betrothal, and he can also betroth her through an agent, all the more so than a na'ara, since she is more in his control than a na'ara, but rather it is to say that he should not do so initially —

and

this supports —

the wording of the tan­​nay, which mentioned only a na'ara —

Rav! For Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav, and some say Rabbi Elazar [

and some say that Rabbi Elazar said it]:

It is forbidden for a man to betroth his daughter when she is a minor, until she grows up and says, “I want so-and-so.”

Here the Gemara returns to the principal law stated explicitly in our Mishna, that the man betroths and the woman becomes betrothed through an agent, and explains:

Agency

in betrothal,

from where do we derive it [

from where is it learned]?

For it was taught:

It is written [Deuteronomy 24]: “When a man takes a woman and possesses her, and it shall be, if she does not find favor in his eyes, and he writes for her a scroll of severance and places it in her hand and sends her from his house. And she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s. And the latter man hates her, and he writes for her a scroll of severance and places it in her hand and sends her from his house”; and this is the passage of divorce —

And from the fact that the Torah said “and he sends her,” and did not say “and he divorces her from his house,” we learn two laws:

A. The wording

“and he sends”

alone

teaches: that he

the husband

makes an agent

to divorce his wife.

B. The Torah’s wording

“and he sends her” [

the additional letter he], is expounded as though it were written “and she sends,” without the mappiq in the he, which implies that the woman sends;

it teaches: that she

the woman

makes an agent

to receive her bill of divorce from her husband. And from the fact that the Torah said

“and he sends, and she sends”,

that is: the repetition of the wording “and he sends her” stated in the passage,

it teaches: that

also

the agent makes another agent.

in his place.

The Gemara adds and explains:

We have found

indeed we have learned agency

in divorce, and agency

in betrothal,

from where do we derive it?

And if you would say,

perhaps you will say: no special exposition is needed for betrothal, because

it is learned [

this law is learned]

from divorce,

by the method of a “principle derived from one case” [“what do we find”]: Just as in divorce both of them make an agent, so too in betrothal?

This cannot be said, for this learning can be refuted:

What is true of divorce is that it exists against her will

of the woman, and because of this stringency agency is effective in divorce; but betrothal, which is not performed against the woman’s will, perhaps is performed only through the betrothed himself and not through his agent!? And we explain: agency in betrothal is learned from what

the verse says:

“And she leaves and becomes” [“

and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s”], and thus

the verse compares

the written text

becoming

[betrothal]

to leaving

[divorce], and we learn:

Just as

in

leaving he appoints

[makes]

an agent, so too

in

becoming he also appoints an agent.

The Gemara further explains:

But rather, this that we learned

that the owner of the grain heap can send an agent to separate teruma from his heap, as we learned in tractate Terumot, chapter 4, Mishna 4:

One who says to his agent, “Go, separate teruma”

from my heap, and he did not specify for him the measure of teruma that he should take, for the Sages established a measure for teruma: a generous eye is one fortieth, an average eye one fiftieth, and a stingy eye one sixtieth, this agent

separates according to

what he recognizes of

the mindset of the owner [

the owner of the heap], whether his eye is generous or stingy.

And if

the agent

does not know

what is

the mindset of the owner,

then he

separates according to the average [

according to the measure of an average eye], which is:

one fiftieth.