Commento su Ketubbot 12:5

הנושא את האשה ופסקה עמו – in the document and symbolic form of making an agreement binding, or he (i.e., the husband) aid to witnesses: “you are my witnesses that I obligate myself to support her (i.e., my wife-to-be’s) daughter that she has from another man.

Introduction This mishnah deals with a case where a widow who already had a daughter married a man and cut a deal with him that he provide food and clothing for this daughter for five years.

לכשתבא אצלי – meaning to say, if I would sustain her mother, I would feed her.

If a man married a woman and she cut a deal with him that he should maintain her daughter for five years, he must maintain her for five years. Since he promised to maintain her for five years, he is obligated to do so, no matter what the circumstances, as we shall see below.

מוליך לה מזונותיה למקום שאמה שם – for we hold that a daughter is with her mother whether as an adult or as a child – all the time that the mother wants. And the son, until six years with his mother, and the father is obligated to provide support and he is with his mother, if the mother wants.

If she was [subsequently] married to another man and cut a deal with him [as well] that he should maintain her daughter for five years, he must maintain her for five years. The first husband may not plead, “If she will come to me I will maintain her”, rather he must send her maintenance to her at the place where her mother [lives]. Similarly, the two husbands cannot plead, “We will maintain her jointly”, but one must maintain her and the other give her the cost of her maintenance. If this woman is divorced from this husband and goes and gets married again, and then cuts a deal with the new husband that he should maintain the daughter for five years, the first husband is still obligated, even though the daughter will now receive maintenance from the second husband. The first husband may not say that he will maintain her only if she comes back to live with him. Even though the first husband intended to maintain her so that he could be married to her mother, he is still obligated. If necessary he must send her maintenance money to wherever she may be. Finally, the two husbands cannot split the costs of the daughter’s maintenance. Rather each one must bear the full costs; one provides the actual food and clothing and another provides the monetary equivalent.

בנותיהן ניזונות מנכסים בני חורין – but not mortgaged [properties] for we do not release for the support of the wife and the daughters from mortgaged properties because of the welfare of the world, for those who bought the property do not know how much food provisions will cost so that they would beware to leave them a place from which to collect.

Introduction This mishnah continues to discuss the girl whose mother’s husband or husbands promised to support her for five years.

והיא ניזונת – that same daughter.

If she married her husband must supply her with maintenance and they give her the cost of her maintenance. If the daughter, who is receiving maintenance from her mother’s husbands, should marry, her husband is obligated to pay for her maintenance, as are husbands in all cases. Nevertheless, this does not relieve her mother’s husbands from their obligations. Rather her own husband gives her the food and clothing and other things that she requires and her mother’s husbands each pay her the equivalent value of her maintenance.

שהיא כבעלת חוב – for she has upon them a document of support (i.e., food).

If they die, their daughters are maintained out of their free assets only but she must be maintained even out of assigned property, because she is like a creditor. If her mother’s husbands die, there may arise a situation where she is competing with his daughters for maintenance. [If there are sons, daughters do not inherit but rather are maintained from their father’s estate.] In such a situation, their own daughters receive maintenance only from free assets, property actually in possession of the estate. This is the general rule for those maintained by an estate; they do not repossess property from those to whom the estate holder gave or sold property. In contrast, the husbands actually have a debt to the other daughter, the one with whose mother they cut a deal. Therefore, she may take her maintenance money even from assigned property, property which was sold or given away after the marriage or her mother. Since she is a creditor, she collects from the estate in the same manner as do all creditors.

כל זמן שאת עמי – and not if I die or if you die or I will divorce you.

Clever men used to write, “On condition that I shall maintain your daughter for five years while you are with me”. By now we have seen that if a man cuts such a deal, he has an absolute debt to this daughter, one which is not mitigated by divorce or his wife’s death, his death or by the daughter’s marriage. Therefore, clever husbands would limit the original stipulation, promising to feed the daughter only as long as the mother was with him. If he wrote the stipulation in such a manner, if he died, or she died or he divorced her, he would no longer be liable.

ונותנין לה מדור – and similarly, utensils, male servants and maid servants that she would use them during the lifetime of her husband and if the house fell, they don’t have to build her another house, for it is taught in the Mishnah: “you will dwell in my house,” and even if she wanted to build it from her from her own funds, we don’t listen do her.

Introduction A widow who has not claimed her ketubah is maintained from the estate of her husband. Our mishnah deals with the question of whether or not the widow needs to be in her husband’s house to receive her maintenance from her husband’s inheritors.

אם את אצלנו יש ליך מזונות – that the blessing of the house is plentiful.

A widow who says, “I do not want to move from my husband’s house”, the heirs cannot tell her, “Go to your father’s house and we will maintain you”, rather they must maintain her in her husband’s house and they give her a residence according to her honor. A widow has a right to remain in her husband’s house and receive her maintenance there. The inheritors cannot ask her to leave, even if they promise to provide her with maintenance somewhere else. Furthermore, they must provide for her at the same level that she received while her husband was alive. If her husband lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous, she may continue to do so, even if it eats into his children’s inheritance. She must live in a proper part of her husband’s house and may not be put into lesser attractive quarters.

If she said, “I have no desire to move from my father’s house”, the heirs can say to her, “If you stay with us you will have your maintenance, but if you do not stay with us you will receive no maintenance”. However, the widow does not have the right to force the heirs to give her maintenance money elsewhere. If she wishes to live in her father’s house, the inheritors can respond that she will only receive maintenance in her former husband’s house.

If she claimed [that she didn’t want to live there] because she is young and they are young, they must maintain her while she lives in the house of her father. The mishnah now mentions the one exception to this preceding rule. If she is young and they are young, she may not want to live there for fear of impropriety. It may even be that she may not be that different from them in age. If she makes such a claim, she may receive her maintenance money in her father’s home.

כל זמן שהיא בבית אביה – and the heirs gave to support there.

Introduction The last mishnah of this chapter deals with how long a widow has to collect her ketubah. As we shall see, this depends on whether she lives in her father’s house or remains in her husband’s house.

גובה כתובתה – when she desires.

As long as she lives in her father’s house she may collect her kethubah at any time. As long as she lives in her husband’s house she may recover her ketubah, only within twenty-five years, because in the course of twenty-five years she has sufficient opportunities to give favors equal [in value to the amount of] her ketubah, the words of Rabbi Meir who spoke in the name of Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel. According to Rabbi Meir, if a widow returns to live in her father’s house she may collect her ketubah from her husband’s inheritors even after 25 years. However, if she remains in her husband’s home, if she doesn’t collect the ketubah within twenty-five years, she forfeits it. The reason given is that in twenty-five years it can be assumed that she gave away to friends and neighbors property equal to the ketubah. Since this is technically not her money to give away, she loses her ketubah. In any case we should note that twenty-five years is quite a long time. Assumedly, a young widow who intended to remarry would have left her previous husband’s home within the twenty-five years in any case. Furthermore, if she requests the ketubah in the twenty-fourth year, she receives the whole thing, even though she may have spent 24 years giving little things away to friends. In the end, this mishnah strikes me as quite generous to the widow.

שתעשה טובה – from the property of orphans, she gives bread and salt to her neighbors up to [the value of] her Ketubah settlement.

The Sages say: as long as she lives in her husband’s house she may collect her ketubah at any time. As long as she lives in her father’s house she may collect her ketubah only within twenty-five years. The Sages posit an opposite system. According to them, the widow loses her ketubah after twenty-five years, not because we assume that she has given it away, but rather because after twenty-five years we can assume that she has “forgiven” the ketubah to her husband’s inheritors. Therefore, if she remains at her husband’s home she may always later decide to leave and collect her ketubah. The reason that she didn’t ask for her ketubah earlier is that since she was living with the inheritors she may have been embarrassed to ask them. In contrast, if she lives at her father’s home, she has no excuse for not asking for it within twenty-five years, and hence after such a long time, the ketubah is considered to have been forgiven. Again, the important thing to realize is that which is unstated: a widow always has 25 years in which to collect her ketubah, no matter where she lives.

וחכמים אומרים – they did not mention twenty five years to cause her to lose her Ketubah settlement because of the good that she will do from the property of the orphans, but rather, concerning the issue of renunciation, it was mentioned by them that since she was silent and had not claimed [her Ketubah settlement] all these years, she renounced [it], therefore, all the time that she is in the house of her husband, her silence is renunciation since because they honor her, she is ashamed to claim her Ketubah settlement; but in her father’s house, since she had been silent for twenty-five years, it is a renunciation.

If [the widow] died, her heirs must mention her ketubah within twenty-five years. Although the widow herself sometimes has more than 25 years in which to collect the ketubah, should she die before she collects her ketubah, her inheritors must always stake a claim within this time. Some interpret this as 25 years within the death of the husband and some say it refers to 25 years from the death of the wife.

מתה יורשיה מזכירין כתובתה – meaning to say, they need to claim her Ketubah settlement within twenty-five years and especially when she took an oath on her Ketubah prior to her passing. This is the case where her heirs are able to claim her Ketubah settlement, but if she had not taken an oath regarding her Ketubah, her heirs do not inherit from her Ketubah anything, and no one bequeaths an oath to his children.