The Talmud brings a teaching that we gather ten men to recite blessings for the newlyweds. This is based on Boaz marrying Ruth (Ruth 4:2), so it applies even to a widower marrying a widow. The Gemara explains that we continue saying these blessings for seven days if either member of the couple was not married before.

To explain, for the week following a wedding, we make a feast every day to continue celebrating the marriage. This is called “sheva brachot” seven blessings, since we recite the seven special blessings on the bride and groom. In ancient times these took place in the groom’s home, nowadays the friends and family host these meals.

In Jewish culture, marriage is a community event. Jews don’t simply run off to Vegas and get married privately by a Rabbi dressed as Elvis.  After all, we need ten men to say the blessings, and we never get together without food and drink. Families and neighbors come together and join in the joy.

Rav Yehuda adds that we say these blessings (the Talmud will list them tomorrow) for the entire seven days of the wedding celebration, if “new faces” have come to this day’s feast.

So as long as a new person shows up we recite the special blessings. Rashi states this can be someone who was not at the feast the day before, others explain it needs to be someone who was not at the wedding ceremony. Therefore he can bring a new element of added joy. Tosafot states that the Sabbath itself brings more joy, so we don’t need a new person then.

It is important for a man to think about what he brings to the party. This can be a literal party, don’t just show up and enjoy other people’s food, drink, and fun. Maybe you’re not bringing your own beer, but you can bring joy, fun, and positive emotional energy wherever you go.

If you are joining a sports team, find out what position needs to be filled. Maybe you are a good pitcher but they already have a great pitcher, but you can master second base and fill out what the team is missing.

In a business setting make sure you bring something to the group. Analyze what talents and experience your colleagues already have available, and think about what gaps exist you can fill.

Don’t just show up and be a taker or a cog, bring your A game and make a difference in whatever group you are in.

The Talmud is discussing why it may be inadvisable to get married on Friday, since the first act of marital intimacy will be Friday night, on the Sabbath. This act is likely to cause bleeding, which may be forbidden on the Sabbath.

Our sages discuss if the first act of intimacy is more like creating an opening, a constructive act, or more like wounding or breaking, a destructive act. Typically, constructive acts are forbidden on the Sabbath while destructive acts are usually not.

What if the man has no intention to create something useful, for example he intends merely for physical enjoyment?  It is inevitable that the act does cause a physical change. However, some sages rule that even causing an inevitable result  is allowed when one does not desire that result.

Human sexuality can be incredibly destructive or positive. It depends of course on the context and the people involved. However, intimate acts are always powerful and meaningful, even when some may say they are merely “casual”. They cause biological and psychological changes to both men and women.

God designed human beings to release powerful pleasure hormones, oxytocin and dopamine, during the intimate act. These hormones create a biological bond between the partners to help achieve the close relationship that the Torah calls “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

One should not underestimate the power of this physical act to create profound emotional and psychological consequences in both men and women.

Today the Daf also mentions Shmuel, a medical doctor, who stated that in his time in Babylonia many men knew how to have an intimate act without breaking the hymen. This was accomplished through some kind of tilting, perhaps combined with relying on the elasticity of the membrane. This knowledge has been lost, likely because people in later generations would have misused it.

Tosafot points out that this does not mean that they could finish the act without actually tearing the hymen, though the Talmud elsewhere states that Shmuel himself could do so, this skill was never common knowledge. It does appear from this discussion that in the past our sages did teach other men explicit information that would help them in their married lives.

On today’s Daf a sage named bar Kappara brings another reason for virgins to marry on Wednesday: so they will have their first marital intimacy that night, which is the fifth day of creation (since Jewish days begin at nightfall), on which the fish were blessed by God to multiply.

Although Judaism is highly intellectual and values study and logic, we do find Jewish law endorsing concepts that may appear to be superstitious or mere omens. In this case, the concept is not based on superstition but on verses in the Bible. If God gave a blessing to fish to reproduce on the fifth day, this reflects a reality that this day was created by God as a good day for reproduction.

It can be important to remember that what may appear to modern people to be merely an old wives’ tale (bubbe maaseh in Yiddish) may actually be based on logic or human experience. Sadly, sometimes modern people dismiss traditional practices as baseless or ridiculous, and do not analyze why they worked for billions of human beings over thousands of years.

Bar Kappara brings another amazing statement:

Bar Kappara taught: The handiwork of the righteous is greater than the creation of heaven and earth, as with regard to the creation of heaven and earth it is written: “My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has spanned the heavens” (Isaiah 48:13). Regarding the handiwork of the righteous it is written: “The place (Temple) which You have made for Yourself to dwell in, Lord, the Sanctuary, Lord, which your hands have established” (Exodus 15:17).

God is said to use one hand (God has no body or physicality, this anthropomorphism is so we understand the message) to create, while men use two.

It may appear obvious that whatever God Himself creates is greater than anything man can create. Since that is true on a basic level, we need to work on understanding what Bar Kappara meant.

My take is that God doesn’t need two hands, meaning full concentration and power, to create. However, for a man to accomplish anything lasting, he needs to invest more, using two hands. This can mean that he uses both physical and intellectual powers, or hint that he must employ both his capacity to give and his ability to set boundaries. In Kabbalah the right arm is associated with giving (Hesed) while the left is strict judgment and limits (Din).

The highest mission of a man in this world is to become a creator, to become like God. Every man is naturally inclined to build a legacy for himself. He can create a family, a business, a group of friends. Some men create schools and hospitals. Certain men build themselves into great athletes, scholars, or leaders.

This takes total dedication. You have to use two hands – all of your abilities – to truly make the world a better place. Think about your personal mission, and if you are using all your powers to further your goals for life.

Following yesterday’s discussion of being forced to move the customary wedding day, the Talmud notes a case in which a wedding moves forward despite an unavoidable tragedy:

If one’s bread was baked, his animals slaughtered, his wine diluted, and water placed on the meat, but the father of the groom or the mother of the bride died, then they move the corpse into a protected room, and the bride and groom are taken to the wedding canopy.

After the wedding, the groom engages in intimacy with the bride to fulfill the commandment, then they separate (and bury the dead). They then observe the seven days of the wedding feasts, and after observe the seven days of mourning.

The Talmud explains that this ruling only applies when everything is prepared, and if they don’t go ahead the meat will spoil before it can be sold to others to avoid the loss. This is the financial reason to allow proceeding with the wedding, but there is also a deeper emotional reason.

Without the father of the husband or the mother the bride we are concerned that if they don’t move forward now then the wedding will never happen. These people are the most involved in arranging the details of the wedding, and also the most critical figures in leading their children to the wedding canopy on an emotional level.

A father sets the example for his sons of how to act towards women. The sons learn from him how to relate to their future wife. A father, especially in ancient times, was expected to be involved in his sons’ picking their wives, to advise them to find the best possible mate. A man at his sons wedding feels tremendous pride, and responsibility to make sure everything is right.

A woman’s mother is there for her daughter as she grows, and is her confidant through the anxiety of finding a spouse. She is the one who guided her daughter through doubts and joy to this wedding day. The actions of her mother are also the prototype of how the daughter will behave in a marriage.

It is true that people don’t always grow up like their parents, but most people do end up mostly like their parents. People  under stress will tend to default to the behaviors they observed as a child, no matter how dysfunctional. It is good practice for young men and women who are dating to observe the parents of the other person, and most specifically the father of the man and mother of the woman. If a man sees significant problems with a woman’s mother, he should not make her his mother in law unless he first verifies that she is not following in her footsteps.

This is a difficult and tragic situation, but a reminder of the key concept for your own success: Sometimes in life we have valid reasons not to move forward and accomplish out mission. But when something is vital to your life, you must get it together and keep going despite your personal feelings, or it will never get done.

Ketuvot is sometimes called “Shas Katan” meaning a microcosm of the entire Talmud, because it contains many topics. On the second page our sages compare unavoidable situations delaying a marriage to unavoidable situations in a divorce. For example, if a man gave a writ of divorce (get in Hebrew) on condition that he did not return within 12 months. This was done by men leaving for business or soldiers going to war, to allow their wives to remarry if they were killed but no one witnessed their death.

What if the husband who gave such a get wants to come home, but catches the flu and cannot make the trip? In theory he has a valid excuse since this was an unavoidable problem, so the get is not valid. However, Rava explains that the sages ruled that the get is valid anyway, to account for the modest and the brazen.

A very modest woman holding such a get will think to herself that her husband had wanted to return but met an unavoidable situation, and perhaps is stuck in a foreign country pining to return to her. She will sit and not try to remarry, even though the man has no intention of coming back.

An exceptionally brazen woman may know that there was unavoidable problem that delayed her husband, or hear rumors that he is trying to get home. This would make the get invalid. However, she may claim that there was no unavoidable circumstances so she can pretend it was valid and marry another man. If her first husband later makes it back, then she was living in sin and any children from the other men are illegitimate.

The Gemara also discusses the period when the Greek governor (Hegemon) appointed over Israel would abduct and violate Jewish women on their wedding night. Since the Greeks knew that the custom was for virgins to get married on Wednesdays, they would come into Jewish towns then looking for a wedding. The Jews began to hold weddings on Tuesdays.

These violations by the Greek rulers were not merely out of lust, but were part of the program to emasculate and subjugate the Jews. This law of abducting newlyweds (jus prima nocte) was one of the causes of the Hanukkah revolt.

The Romans later made the same decree in the province of Judah.

The Gemara explains that this situation caused not only humiliation and violation but also a danger of loss of life to modest women. The more modest girls could try to resist the Greeks and be murdered. Therefore the customary wedding day for virgins was allowed to be moved.

Our sages ask why the rabbis of that time did not teach the women that they did not need to resist, so they would not be in mortal danger. A married woman who is (God forbid) taken advantage of but remains totally passive has not committed adultery and is allowed to return to her husband

The Gemara answers that the brazen women would have taken this allowance and run with it. She could claim that she had been passive when she was actually willing or encouraging the Greeks. Then she could go back to her husband and play the victim, and he would be none the wiser.

This is an incredible psychological insight. It is true that most people, most of the time, behave in a fairly normal, average manner. However, there are always outliers. While our sages typically made rules that account for normal situations, when it came to issues of marriage and intimacy, which are highly emotional, they also considered the extremes.

You can apply this in your own life. If you are looking to advertise your business with an emotionally charged ad, be aware that you may get extreme responses. Some people may love it and others hate it, so plan for this accordingly. You may want to play it safe and avoid emotional content, or not, depending on the context.

When a man does things out of the ordinary or becomes noticeably successful, he will attract attention, but again some of it will be positive while others may be jealous and seek to undermine him. Know that while most people trend towards the average, there are outliers.

Mazal Tov on our completion of Yevamot, an epic and difficult section of the Talmud. I’m still working on catching up with my notes on Yevamot.

Today we move on to the next book in the Talmud, Ketuvot. This word is the plural of ketuva, which literally means  a writing. A ketuva, also called kesuva or kesuba, is a marriage contract, a legal document written or signed during the marriage.

The ketuva spells out the obligations that a man takes upon himself in a marriage. As we learn more we will examine what these are. This tractate of Gemara cover many areas of law and culture, as marriage is a key institution in any society and profoundly affects all areas of life.

Today the first Mishnah teaches that a virgin bride should be married on a Wednesday. This is so the newlyweds will be together that night, and if it turns out that she wasn’t actually a virgin, they can go to court Thursday morning. In those times the rabbinical court was in session only on Mondays and Thursdays.

Why would they go to court over virginity? As we will learn later, if this woman was claiming to be a virgin to receive more dowry or a larger sum in her ketuva, then she is not entitled to that money if she was in fact not a virgin. We cannot allow people to misrepresent their status for financial gain. But there is a far more serious issue at stake.

In that time the custom was for a couple to get engaged, then actually marry and live together up to twelve months later (see Genesis 24:55).  During this time, the woman prepared herself for marriage with clothing and jewelry, and the man got his business in order, perhaps building a house. However, they were not merely engaged as modern people understand the word.

This Jewish engagement or “kiddushin” is really the first stage of a marriage. We have an entire book in the Talmud about kiddushin. The second stage is “nisuin” or Huppa, which refers to the wedding canopy. Nowadays we perform the kiddushin during the wedding.

After this engagement she has status of married woman already. So if a woman stated she was a virgin at the time of engagement but isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, there is a possibility she committed adultery during this phase.

Tosafot, an early medieval commentary, notes that even though adultery is (or was in his time) very rare, a woman who committed adultery is forbidden to stay with her husband. We don’t want them to continue what is actually a forbidden union. So we advise them to go to court right away, so witnesses can come forth and clarify her status.

As we will learn on future dappim, there may be a good explanation for her incomplete hymen. Perhaps she had been horseback riding or biking or had needed a medical procedure. But if she actually strayed with another man during  her engagement, that act of betrayal prevents her from staying with her husband.

Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, who composed the first major written explanation of the Talmud) notes that our sages recommended marrying on a Wednesday so that if the man finds that his new wife was not a virgin, as claimed, he can take her to court immediately before his anger cools off.

Normally calming down from your anger is appropriate. Our sages advise “talin caascha laila” or sleep on it.

Here, the concern is that if the man calms down he may forgive or overlook this possibility and never clarify if his new wife had actually betrayed him. We don’t want a man to let things slide in his relationship. If his marriage starts off with him failing to investigate the suspicion that his bride may have strayed during engagement, it will only get worse. He may end up knowingly ignoring outright adultery, trapped in a spiral of denial and self delusion.

This is a profound lesson. If you do not enforce your personal boundaries, people will walk all over you. While sometimes it is appropriate to remain stoic and let little things slide, when there are serious issues that impact your personal life, you need to take immediate action.

Three days preparation

On another theme, the Gemara asks why we don’t advise marrying on Sunday, since court also sat on Monday. The Jewish Sabbath is Friday night through Saturday night. So if we advised marrying on Sunday, there would be only one day to prepare for the wedding. Our sages were concerned that the preparations would be rushed and the feast and ambiance would not be nice enough.

Therefore Wednesday was the appropriate day, so give three days to prepare a lavish wedding. This may sound odd, since in modern times people take months or even years to plan and prepare for a wedding. However, our sages, well versed in weddings and marriage, knew that three days is perfectly adequate.

This ancient practice should remind us that today some people obsess about the wedding, while the marriage itself is an afterthought. This is not a wise approach – the wedding is just one day, while the marriage can last a lifetime.

This chapter began with a list of people not entitled to eat Terumah, even though they were Cohanim (priests). Now the Talmud brings other laws of Terumah, including the fact that Terumah is the personal property of the Cohen who received it as his due. This is different from maaser sheni, the second tithe, and the first fruits. According to Rabbi Meir those items are not personal property, but are in a sense owned by God, who allows us to consume them.

The key sign that Terumah is personal property is that a Cohen can marry a woman with it. In Jewish law the first stage of marriage can be accomplished by giving the woman something of value, as we will learn in detail in Kiddushin. This only works if the item is actually your own.

As an aside, Jewish law assumes private ownership and has a high regard for private property. Judaism is actually incompatible with communism or any ridiculous ideology that espouses the elimination or restriction of private property.

In modern times, it is common for men to work hard and rely on what they own to impress other people, especially women. Yes, this often works, but can distract us from the fact that what you own is not the only way to gain status.

A wise man does not forget that what you are is at least as important as what you own. Work on yourself and maximize your own innate talents. Improve your social skills. In some settings you may have no property or wealth to display and will need to work with who you are and how you relate to other people, instead of what you own.

Following yesterday’s discussion of how the Jews entered Israel and immediately prepared to bring the Paschal lamb, today the Talmud mentions a possible reason that they had not been performing circumcision in the wilderness. In the wilderness, the north wind did not blow during the day. This wind is associated with removing clouds, bringing sunlight and healing. Most Jews were reluctant to perform surgery without it.

Out sages ask why we don’t advise people to avoid circumcision or other surgery on days with a strong south wind, which has the opposite effect of the north wind. They answer that most people don’t pay attention to such potential dangers anyway.

This is an important point. A lot of people are not paying attention to which way the wind blows, to the direction of human history and modern society. Most of us just go with the flow, without awareness of the nuances of the flow. To be fair, life is so busy that people don’t have time to sit and think about where the world is going.

A wise man makes the effort to become aware. Maybe the focus of other people and the media is not currently on the same topic he is an expert in, but he senses that they will come around to it again. Instead of trying to reorient himself to what is popular this week, he keeps working towards his own mission, knowing that he will get a chance to show it to others eventually.

Today the Daf mentions that Rabbi Yohanon heard a new teaching, and asked where it was from. His study partner told him it was from Torat Cohanim, a collection of teachings. Rabbi Yohanon went and learned all of Torat Cohanim in three days, then spent three months analyzing the teachings.

When you want wisdom, it is not enough to just read or learn it. You have to revisit it again and again, and think deeply about the meaning of the words, and how to apply them.

The Talmud itself is not a list of information, most of it is questioning or comparing one teaching to another to gain clarity and resolve contradictions. One of the reasons we learn Talmud is to train our brains how to think about complex content and draw rational conclusions.

Yesterday we began a new chapter, which starts with a teaching that an uncircumcised Cohen cannot eat Trumah, the tithe that the priests (Cohanim) are entitled to eat.

The Talmud brings a comparison between a lack of circumcision and a person who just lost a close relative, where there is a debate if he can consume Trumah, and also compare the Paschal lamb, a special Passover offering that also cannot be eaten by the uncircumcised.

Our sages note that when the Jewish people were entering Israel under the leadership of Joshua, most of the men, except the Levites and those men who had been to young or old to be in the decree to die in the wilderness, were actually uncircumcised (see Joshua 5:10). To bring a Paschal lamb they had to get circumcised and also purify themselves from ritual contamination, since they had fought wars and been in contact with dead bodies.

This purification requires two sprinklings, four days apart, from water prepared from the ashes of the famous Red Heifer. Ideally, these sprinklings should be done on a circumcised man. However, the Gemara notes that the year the Jews entered Israel the schedule was too tight: “And the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month” (Joshua 4:19). This leaves only four days until the Paschal lamb is brought on the fourteenth.

Therefore, at least one sprinkling from the purification waters was done before they were circumcised. Even though the Jews were weary from the trip, and though they could not yet do the final step needed from eat the paschal lamb, they did everything they could to prepare immediately. This required planning ahead so they could all become pure and ready to bring the offering within the tight schedule.

There are two wonderful lessons here. First, a man should do whatever he can to further his goals, even if he is not yet able to complete his mission. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are now.

Second, plan ahead. If you will be pressed for time next week, get a head start now, or get in an extra trip to the gym or more sleep in preparation for when you will not have the free time to do so.

The Talmud cites a pair of most likely hypothetical cases from the Mishnah:

A bastard (mamzer) can disqualify or entitle a woman to eat Trumah, if an Israelite woman was married to a priest, or the daughter of a priest was married to an Israelite, and she bore him a daughter, and the daughter went and married a slave or a gentile and bore him a son, this son is a mamzer.  If the husband of the first woman died, then since she has a surviving descendant from him, the Israelite woman can still eat Trumah while the daughter of a priest cannot.

The power of this mamzer is contrasted to the following case:

A High Priest can disqualify his grandmother from partaking of Trumah. How? If the daughter of a priest was married to an Israelite, and she bore him a daughter, and the daughter married a priest and bore him a son, this son is fit to be a High Priest, serving on the altar. This son enables his mother to partake of Trumah, as he is a priest. Yet, he disqualifies his mother’s mother from partaking of Trumah, as he is her offspring from her Israelite husband.

The Gemara cites the reaction of this hypothetical grandmother: she would be willing to be an atonement (meaning bear the burden) for her lowly grandson, the mamzer, since he enables her to eat Trumah. But she would be unwilling to bother with her other potential grandson, the High Priest, since he disqualifies her from Trumah.

First of all, we see that although everyone wants successful children and grandchildren, they also want to be able to take personal pride in their accomplishments. There are many old jokes about Jewish grandmothers being quick to brag that their offspring are doctors or lawyers, since those professionals are widely respected, but reluctant to admit they have a rabbi for a grandson.

In modern mainstream society there are mothers who, while they certainly care for their children on some level, also see their children as a source of income. Women with more children receive more government benefits, and in the event of divorce, custody of a child comes with an award of child support. Children are can tragically be reduced to a dollar entitlement and used as a weapon against a former spouse.

The broader lesson here is that you don’t know what elements of your life will bring you lasting benefit. A man may pursue many hobbies and enter numerous relationships in his youth, but not realize which of them are satisfying until much later.

It behooves a man to figure out what really brings him lasting joy, and to continue to invest himself in those areas. Some men dedicate all their energy and attention to their career, and only decades later realize they really enjoy playing an instrument or a martial art. Explore what works for you and your own chosen goals and pursue it.