Q&A: A Deaf Person Nowadays
A Deaf Person Nowadays
Question
It would seem that nowadays, when it is possible to communicate with deaf people and teach them, a deaf person who learns, understands, and conducts himself like a competent person should have the status of a competent person.
What do you think?
If you think so, how would we explain the Mishnah (Yevamot chapter 14, mishnah 1): "A competent man who married a competent woman… if he became deaf or mentally incompetent, he can never divorce her"?
After all, even in their day it was possible to see that he continued to conduct himself like a competent person, so why would his status revert to that of someone deaf from birth, whose law is like that of a mentally incompetent person?
Answer
I am inclined to think so, since the law of a deaf person stems from lack of understanding and is not a scriptural decree (like a mentally incompetent person and a minor). Rabbi Binyamin Lau once told me that he went around to the leading halakhic decisors of our time to get their agreement to such a ruling, and most of them did not agree. In the end, I think Rabbi Asher Weiss did write this.
I do not know what the situation was in their day, and whether he really behaved normally, or at least was perceived as normal by those around him. It is possible that this was a blanket rule, so that people would not come to distinguish between those deaf from birth. But nowadays it seems obvious that this is the law.
I have now thought of another explanation. Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah ties the law of the deaf person to his inability to communicate with his surroundings. This is a special type of mentally incompetent person (not connected to IQ and the like). If so, then even if he had been competent and then became deaf, he now does not communicate with his surroundings. Though on the face of it, the problem with communication is during his developmental stage, and once he has become wise and matured it should not matter that he became deaf later, and this requires further examination. In any case, nowadays, when there is good communication with the environment, this too of course falls away.
Discussion on Answer
I was writing from memory, but now that I looked I really found his words in the Commentary on the Mishnah, Terumot, chapter 1, section 2:
A deaf person in our language is one who does not hear, and the Sages, peace be upon them, called one who neither hears nor speaks "deaf," because the cause of muteness is deafness that affected the child in his mother’s womb and causes him not to hear how people speak; and this has already been explained in the book of natural inquiries. Therefore they called the mute person by the name of the cause of his muteness.
He writes that the cause of muteness is deafness, which implies that lack of communication is what makes him like a mentally incompetent person. But that really is my interpretation; it is not stated there explicitly.
And he also wrote there that if it happened after he had been competent, then he is valid at law:
And know that if a person became deaf after he had been hearing, or became mute after he had been speaking, he should not separate terumah ab initio.
And there is no need for the inferences you suggested.
Do you mean to say that according to Maimonides, a competent person who became deaf should not divorce only ab initio, but if he gave a bill of divorce, his wife is divorced?
That is how it appears regarding terumah, and by logic the same law would apply to divorce.
This is Maimonides’ language regarding divorce:
Maimonides on the Mishnah, tractate Yevamot, chapter 14, mishnah 1
And do not overlook in all these cases the principle that I have already introduced to you, namely: if the marriage is fully valid and the divorce is not fully valid, his acts are not effective; rather, the law is that he may never divorce.
Maimonides, Laws of Divorce, chapter 2
Halakhah 17
One who married while competent and then became deaf, and needless to say became mentally incompetent, may never divorce until he recovers; and we do not rely on the deaf person’s gestures, nor on his writing, even though his mind is sound and settled,
That implies that even after the fact, no.
Regarding terumah, in his legal code he does not bring the ruling about a competent person who became deaf. On the face of it, this is a contradiction between the Commentary on the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah.
Perhaps his intention is that he should not divorce, but not that after the fact it is ineffective. We are speaking about someone who married while competent and wants to divorce after becoming deaf. So his marriage is valid on both the Torah level and the rabbinic level, while his divorce is valid only on the Torah level but not on the rabbinic level. According to this, one who married after becoming deaf could divorce ab initio. And that is what logic suggests.
Thank you.
Where is this found in Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah? [I looked in Terumot, Chagigah, and Yevamot and didn’t find it].
From Rashi’s words:
Rashi on tractate Chagigah 2b
"The deaf person of whom the Sages spoke everywhere — whom they equated with the mentally incompetent in order to exempt him — they spoke only of one who neither hears nor speaks. For this is what the rabbis established: one who neither hears nor speaks is not considered a person of understanding.
One who speaks but does not hear — he originally was competent until he learned to speak, and afterward became deaf."
I infer that someone who had been competent and then became deaf is considered competent. The requirement that he speak is only so that we have an indication that something else did not happen to him that caused him to lose his understanding.
And because of that I do not understand the Mishnah in Yevamot [or the Rashi quoted here]; after all, even if he became deaf-mute, he could be tested by writing, so why can he never divorce?