Q&A: A Get, Noahides, and the Siftei Chakhamim
A Get, Noahides, and the Siftei Chakhamim
Question
On the verse, “Please say that you are my sister,” the Siftei Chakhamim writes:
“Some ask: how could Abraham have wanted to cause them to stumble in the prohibition of a married woman by telling them that she was his sister? One can answer that he would tell them that she was his sister, but nevertheless she was a married woman and her husband was overseas. This also resolves what he said, ‘and my soul shall live because of you’—he should only have said, ‘and my soul shall live.’ Rather, this is what Abraham was saying to Sarah: I will say that you are my sister, and that you are a married woman whose husband has gone away from you, and I am searching and seeking him; perhaps I will find him and he will give you a bill of divorce, or perhaps he is dead and then you will marry another man. And for that reason they will keep me alive, so that they will not stumble in the prohibition of a married woman. And that is also why she agreed to this, since if he tells them that she is possibly a married woman, they certainly will not lie with her.”
And this seemingly needs explanation, because Noahides do not have divorce except by “his sending her out of his house and letting her go on her own, or by her leaving his domain and going her way” (Maimonides, Laws of Kings 9:8). So what does it mean that he is looking for the husband so that he will give a get?
I know that, in general, the whole explanation of the Siftei Chakhamim is really far from necessary, but I would still be glad to hear your opinion on how his words can be reconciled.
Answer
See at the beginning of Parashat Derakhim (by the author of Mishneh LaMelekh, Rabbi Yehuda Rosanes), in the first two discourses, where he discusses whether the Patriarchs had left the status of Noahides only stringently, or also leniently. In any case, according to all opinions, they were not fully Noahides, and their wives required a get to be permitted.
And of course, all of this is just pilpul and has nothing to do with the plain meaning of the text.
Discussion on Answer
And what the author of Siftei Chakhamim wrote, that if her husband is found “he will give her a get,” was not meant literally. Rather, the intention is that he would divorce her by making it known that he had left her not with the intention of returning.
Regards, S."
And regarding Avimelekh, one can say that he assumed that if she were taken to the king’s palace, she would presumably agree to marry him and leave her missing husband. For among Noahides, even a woman who decides to end the marriage thereby brings about the dissolution of the marriage, as Maimonides writes.
And on the level of plain meaning, it seems that Abraham thought that if they believed Sarah was unmarried, they would not take her by force, but would approach her brother with a marriage proposal, as honorable people do. And he, as a shrewd trader, would drag out the negotiations, and meanwhile the famine would end and he would leave the place.
Regards, S.Z.
You wrote: “whether the Patriarchs had left the status of Noahides only stringently, or also leniently” — but here the issue is that this was a get (according to the Siftei Chakhamim). So apparently the law would have been that of Noahides. And so the question returns.
With Heaven’s help, 15 Marheshvan 5780
It seems to me straightforwardly that the words of the Siftei Chakhamim can be explained as follows: the Philistines were not supposed to know that Abraham and Sarah had a different status from other Noahides.
If so, when they would hear that Sarah was married to another man who had disappeared, they would understand that she was possibly a married woman. For if her husband had decided to leave her, then she would no longer be his wife; but if his intention was to return to her, she would still be a married woman.
Regards, S.Z. Levinger
However, according to this one must discuss what Avimelekh’s initial assumption was in taking her. Perhaps Avimelekh held that Sarah’s marriage to a husband who disappeared was retroactively void, because there was a clear presumption that had she known that her husband would disappear, she would not have married him—as was discussed here in the column “Annulment of Kiddushin: A Halakhic Perspective” 🙂