Yevamot 69: Which Family Relationships Prohibit One From Teruma?; Promiscuity & Rumours (regarding women, of course)

When are women disqualified from partaking of teruma?  Today's daf explores the intricacies of this question.  Some of the rabbis' discussions include:

• how we know that Levite and Israelite women are indicated along with kohenot regarding marriage into the priesthood
• why widowed and divorced women are mentioned specifically regarding teruma
• teruma is prohibited to some who have intercourse with certain men, including chalalim, specific converts, etc.
• where intercourse during betrothal prohibits a woman from partaking of teruma and where it does not

A new Mishna teaches us that when a woman is raped or seduced by a priest who doesn't marry her - or when she is raped by an imbecile who does marry her - if she is a kohenet she is still allowed teruma and if she is an Israelite she is not allowed teruma.  If an Israelite has extramarital intercourse with a kohenet and she becomes pregnant, she cannot take teruma for she has an Israelite fetus.  If she miscarries she is allowed teruma.  Once she gives birth she is enabled to take teruma on behalf of her son, who is a priest as the daughter of a kohenet.  Thus the son is more powerful than the father: the son's status allows her to partake of the teruma while the father's status does not.

Further, our Mishna teaches when a slave disqualifies and enables his mother to partake of teruma through two complex cases.  A mamzer also can disqualify or enable his mother from partaking of teruma.  Another example of this phenomenon regards a High Priest.  when a kohenet marries an Israelite and they have a daughter who marries a priest, if they have a son, he is fit to be a High Priest, which enables his mother to partake of teruma.  But he disqualifies his mother's mother from teruma, for he is the offspring of her Israelite husband.

The Gemara discusses these case examples.  First they note that we already know that marriage to an imbecile is invalid, for a barite taught that minor boys and imbeciles who married women and then died - their yevamot are exempt from chalitza and yibum.  

Regarding the woman who is impregnated by an Israelite, she is not partaking of teruma, the rabbis argue that in other circumstances women are allowed to partake of teruma almost immediately.  Using the marker of forty days following the death of her husband that a woman can partake of teruma, Rav Chisda notes that women may take teruma until she is forty days pregnant.  Before that date, the fetus is not truly human but 'water'.  

When looking at the case of a shetuki, a child born of an uncertain father, the rabbis look at rumours carefully.  If she says that the father, a priest, is her betrothed and their are no rumours about her promiscuity, the child is not a mamzer.  But if there are rumours that she has been with other men as well, the child is called a mamzer.   This difference can determine whether or not she has sustenance provided to her once the baby is born.  

To have intercourse with one's betrothed is fine according to Torah law.  Rabbinic law forbids this contact.  It is interesting to watch the rabbis argue about the dire importance of women's sexual reputations.  We continue to debate about these questions: what can we assume that we know about a woman if she is promiscuous?  What can we assume that we know about a woman if people SAY that she is promiscuous?