Yevamot 9: Communal Punishments; Rape; Exemptions; Emotion

How does communal punishment differ from individual punishment?  The Gemara discusses what is done when the court erroneously allows idol worship.  Sins that are committed in error are generally treated with more leniency than those committed intentionally.  Similarly, sins committed by an entire community are punished more vigorously than those committed by an individual.  The rabbis look to juxtapositioning of different words and phrases to prove this assertion.  They also suggest that a number of verbal analogies point us toward their conclusions.

Returning to the discussion of our mishna, The Sage Levi suggests that there should be a sixteenth woman who is exempt from yibum, levirate marriage.  Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi scoffs, "it seems to me that he had no brain in his head!".  HaNasi goes on to describe Levi's suggestion: when one's mother is raped by one's father.  In this case, she cannot be allowed to one of the father's sons, as this could be her child.  This is not a disputed case, argues R. Yehuda, and so it would never come up for yibum in the first place.  

The rabbis then argue about which disputed/undisputed cases are argued in front of the court.  Amud (b) focuses primarily upon cases where a woman is allowed to her yibum under some but not all circumstances.  We end the daf with a number of questions about rape.  Some of the fifteen women who are exempt from yibum are exempt due to their status not as 'married' but as raped.  Rape cloud the guidelines of what is permitted in relationships.

Again, it is disturbing to read throughout this ancient wisdom regarding intimate relationships and  family bonds while ignoring the emotional impact of any of this traumatic events.  It is almost as if people didn't feel as deeply as we do.  But we know that that cannot be the case.  So how did people cope with their experiences of marriage, loss, yibum, chalitza, rape, etc.?  Quietly?  Or loudly, but not to the rabbis?  Was emotion the domain of women; was emotion considered to be unimportant?  How could any of these experiences happen without emotion attached?