Sanhedrin 69: Rebellious Sons, Questions of Children and Conception

Note that over the High Holy Days, I did not blog about my learning.  To reference interesting and disturbing material regarding the punishment for violators of young women, see daf 66 amud (b).

Some of today's daf includes conversations about a ben sorer u'moreh, a rebellious son.  The rabbis attempt to understand who might be thought of as a ben sorer u'moreh, and how he should be punished.  Because of the severity of this concept, the rabbis seem to create almost unachievable criteria. They discuss:

• punishments for men who have intercourse "properly" (regarding ejaculation) with slaves
• questioning whether or not a nine-year-old boy could be subject to the same punishments
• differentiating between the sexual function of a child and an adult male: can a child be a father?
• questioning whether or not a child could impregnate his wife before his "lower beard" filled out
• debating whether or not pregnancy can occur before a boy has been evaluated to be an adult for six months
• it is determined that a boy cannot become a man until three months after he has been named as a man or until his pubic hair fills out

• questioning when a woman might become visibly pregnant and how that might determine when she was impregnated; whether or not a boy was fertile
• whether we follow the majority in a case such as this
• how this might relate to access to teruma
• questioning how an aylonit, a woman who does not develop in the usual manner, might be affected by these circumstances
• questioning whether a child under the age of nine can participate in intercourse at all
• debating sources that would suggest that Shlomo's family had numerous generations who fathered children at the age of eight
• conversations about Bat Sheva being conceived when her father was nine, and conceiving when she was six years old
• Are women healthier than men and thus able to conceive earlier?
• Questioning the age of Avraham, Haran, Sarah, Noach, Shem, Betzalel, and others when they were conceived and when they had their own children

The Mishna has taught us that these halachot apply to a son son and not to a daughter.