“A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” This quote, attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, reflects the difficulty of enforcing verbal agreements. In Halacha, an oral contract is binding after one makes a formal act of acquisition, though if someone reneges on a his verbal commitment, he’s considered מְחֻסַּר אֲמָנָה, untrustworthy. This is actually a dispute (Bava Metzia 49a) between Rav, who considers it OK, and Rabbi Yochanan, who doesn’t, at least for minor gifts where the recipient will rely upon it. When these two Amoraim argue, Rabbi Yochanan regularly wins.
In Ketubot 102b, Rav Giddel cited Rav that there is one case where verbal commitments are binding. Two families are negotiating the terms of marriage. Shaindy’s parents say they’ll provide X dollars to the couple, and Baruch’s parents say they’ll provide Y dollars. If the son arises and betrothes the daughter, thus acting based on the verbal commitments, the financial obligations are thereby acquired. These are the things acquired through words alone.
Rava admiringly observes the bold extent of Rav’s statement, in that it applies not only to betrothal of a naarah, where her father gets monetary benefit from the betrothal, but also to betrothal of a bogeret. Just as it applies to the groom’s father, who receives no monetary benefit. The benefit to the families is simply that the bride and groom are marrying one another.
Eponymous Analysis
In the Yerushalmi parallel (5:1), Amoraim also explore the boldness and extent of Rav Giddel’s statement. We’ll begin with Rav Giddel himself. גִּידּוּל בְּשֵׁם רַב. כַּמָּה אַתָּה נוֹתֵן לְבִנְךָ. כָּךְ וְכָךְ. כַּמָּה אַתָּה נוֹתֵן לְבִתְּךָ. כָּךְ וְכָךְ. כֵּיוָן שֶׁקִּידְּשָׁהּ זָכָת בֵּין הַבָּנוֹת. Rav Giddel receives no title in Yerushalmi, not even “Rav,” because he lacks ordination. This is a regular feature, e.g. Shemen bar Abba. The quote is slightly different. “Once he betrothes her, she acquires among the daughters.” As Korban HaEidah explains, his other daughters, even if they inherit, cannot prevent her from collecting this money.
Rabbi Chiyya bar Yosef then weighs in. He is a second-generation Amora who learned from Rav and Shmuel, of Bavel but who eventually went to Israel, interacting with Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish. He was Rav Giddel’s teacher. He observed: אַשְׁכָּח גִּידּוּל רְבִיתָה וָמַר זְעִירְתָא. Giddel found a large matter and said something small. He then conveys Rav’s teaching in similar manner, but ends it זָֽכְתָה הַבַּת בֵּין הַבָּנוֹת וְהַבֶּן בֵּין הַבָּנִים, the daughter acquires among the daughters and the son among the sons. Korban HaEidah explains that it’s obvious because that’s the practice to give such a gift to his daughter, so he certainly has concluded to do so and transfers. The novelty is that the son gets this in addition to his own portion in the inheritance.
Next, Rabbi Zeira weighs in. A third-generation Amora, coming from Bavel to Israel, he defends Rav Giddel, rhetorically saying וְהָדָא הִיא זְעִירְתָא, “is this indeed a small matter?” After all, betrothal works even via giving a perutah value, and one cannot betroth two women with a single perutah, since each would effectively have a fraction of a perutah. Yet here, they’re acquiring the obligations alongside the betrothal of the woman, with a single perutah!
Fitting in with my earlier column (“It’s the Eponymy, Stupid!”), note how these Amoraim were aware of their names. Rabbi Chiyya bar Yosef puns on Giddel’s name as רְבִיתָה vs זְעִירְתָא. And, possibly prompted by זְעִירְתָא, Rabbi Zeira weighs in to defend.
Finding the Primary Sugya
Rav Giddel’s quote first appears on the previous amud, 102a, but using language implying it is borrowed from elsewhere. After a challenge to the novelty of the ruling in the Mishna according to Reish Lakish, the Talmudic Narrator explains that the Mishna refers to documents of stipulation recording the amounts promised by parents to their children getting betrothed, וְכִדְרַב גִּידֵּל, like Rav Giddel, דְּאָמַר רַב גִּידֵּל אָמַר רַב, for Rav Giddel cited Rav.
Because I feel it important to see quotes in their original context, this sort of phrasing prompts me to examine the parallel sugyot. A classic way of finding such sugyot is to consult the Masoret HaShas, printed on the standard Vilna Shas page. This work, first written by Rabbi Yehoshua Boaz and then re-edited by Rabbi Yishayahu Pick [with his edits in square brackets] points to relevant parallel passages. Here, Masoret Hashas lists Moed Katan 18b and Kiddushin 9b. Alas, these two aren’t the primary sugya, for in both cases, the Talmudic Narrator performs his own analysis, and introduces Rav Giddel’s idea as וְכִדְרַב גִּידֵּל אָמַר רַב, דְּאָמַר רַב גִּידֵּל אָמַר רַב.
The primary is Ketubot 102b, where Rav Giddel’s words are introduced as גּוּפָא אָמַר רַב גִּידֵּל אָמַר רַב. “Gufa” means the body of it, the actual quote which the Talmudic Narrator is acknowledging he borrowed and introduced slightly earlier to make a point. (Contrast אמר מר, where an idea or source arose organically in discourse and is now secondarily subject to a drill-down by later Amoraim or the Talmudic Narrator.) Further evidence that 102b is primary: Rava, a named Amora, reacts to Rav Giddel’s statement, and Rav Ashi and Ravina, other named Amoraim, discuss nevertheless writing the verbal commitment down, which is how the Talmudic Narrator wishes to explain the Mishna, referring to such a written document. Masoret Hashas presumably didn’t record this instance because it was in such close proximity, and thus almost the same context, but a casual Talmudic student wouldn’t realize this.
There are digital alternatives to Masoret Hashas, to find such parallel sugyot. Foremost, Sefaria has this feature. If you click on a sentence/paragraph, the sidebar displays various associated texts. Most people click on commentary, to see Rashi, Tosefot and other meforshim. However, if there are programmatically detected parallel passages in Tanach, Talmud, Midrash, Tosefta, Responsa Literature, etc., these would show up there. Alas, the detected passages include only Kiddushin, Moed Katan and additionally the parallel Yerushalmi. They omit 102b, probably because it was too proximate and they didn’t want to clutter the results.
Sefaria obtains their parallel passages from Dicta. Their algorithm is published in “Identification of Parallel Passages Across a Large Hebrew/Aramaic Corpus,” by Avi Shmidman, Moshe Koppel and Ely Porat, 2018. They simplify Talmudic words to their two least-frequent letters (so וידע דעת עליון אפשר דעת would be simplified to דע דע ענ דע) and then search for parallel skip-grams (where words may be skipped). They’ve recently made their Talmud Search available at talmudsearch.dicta.org.il. If we look for a unique phrase, הֵן הֵן הַדְּבָרִים הַנִּקְנִים בַּאֲמִירָה, while Sefaria omits 102b, Dicta lists it. We’re out of space regarding how we might use this knowledge of parallel passages, but hopefully this column explained some of my tools and methodology.
Rabbi Dr. Joshua Waxman teaches computer science at Stern College for Women, and his research includes programmatically finding scholars and scholastic relationships in the Babylonian Talmud.
