When is a yevama who is married to a priest barred from partaking of the teruma reserved for priests? The rabbis look into the question in some detail. The first category of women discuss are those who are generally prohibited from marrying priests at all. These are divorced women and widowed women. The second category of women discussed is a far more disturbing group. These are the girls who are married to priests when they are younger than three years and one day.
The rabbis tell us that women are not permitted to take from teruma after they marry a priest if they are somehow forbidden to the priest. Marriage to a priest includes betrothal and intercourse, like other marriages. But if a baby - because that is who we are talking about - is married and then widowed and then married to a priest, she is denied teruma. Why? There are two reasons. First, she is a widow and thus forbidden to her yavam. Secondly, she is a baby and thus their sexual intercourse does not 'count'. We have learned earlier that a girl under three years who has intercourse (ie. is raped, for she could not consent to such an act) is considered to be a virgin. This is because the rabbis believe that the hymen grows back when it is torn at such a young age. The end result of this logic leaves this baby girl having had intercourse with her husband and then with her yavam but without any provisions for food, etc.
Another disturbing factor is highlighted. If this baby girl is a Kohen, she is not entitled to partake of teruma from her first family once she has been married to a priest. Why not? Because once she has been 'acquired' by her husband and/or her yavam, her father has no claim to her. In other words, she is not his property nor is she his obligation any longer. And halacha like this is important to the entire community. If this baby girl's family were to provide her with teruma, she is taking sustenance away from others. Each priest gets a share of the teruma; conflict could arise if this baby girl had more teruma claimed on her behalf after she was 'married off'.
There are so many questions I would want to ask the rabbis about today's daf. Did they imagine what the experience of rape at age 2 might be like? Were they concerned about removing a baby girl from any comforts and blocking her from receiving the necessities, including basic sustenance? Was the ownership of girls and women really necessary to carry out G-d's word - is it possible that some of their interpretations were off because they did not have any women around the table with them? If they were to learn more about female anatomy, might they rethink their decisions regarding the lives of girls and women? Who were the men who would actually go along with the halacha that told them to have sexual intercourse with baby girls? In fact, was this ever practiced - or was this a theoretical conversation?
Those are just the questions that were at the front of my mind after reading today's daf. It is difficult to reconcile such arguments with today's sensibilities. These particular conversations are not simply the documentation of antiquated rituals. Those conversations might be focused on stages of ritual impurity, or on the type of sandal to be worn at certain times. These conversations are about our most fundamental rights; the right to the security of our bodies.
There seems to be a tension that the rabbis face frequently. This struggle is about women: are women human beings and thus made in G-d's image and worthy of respect? Or are women chattel, another possession that is both of value and an expense? I cannot understand how women can be understood as people and yet treated as property. The same argument could be made regarding slaves, children, and people with disabilities. It's just that women were and are half of the population. How did the rabbis justify such degrading treatment of human beings?
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