Q&A: An Obligation to Become Obligated
An Obligation to Become Obligated
Question
I see that the recent questions have been dealing with Torah in the person-centered sense (faith, etc.), so I’d be happy to ask a question in the object-centered sense of Torah that will give some wind to your soul 🙂:
A. I haven’t studied the topic in depth, but just superficially: what is meant when people say that the ketubah is “a debt to become obligated”?
B. Why can a person not sell or consecrate something that is not in his possession even though it is his (Bava Kamma 68b), but he can bequeath something that is not in his possession if it is his? What is the difference between sale and inheritance with respect to this issue of selling something not in one’s possession?
Answer
A. I’m not familiar with that expression, but simply speaking it seems that the ketubah is an obligation of the husband toward his wife. But unlike any other contract, where you are free whether to sign it or not, here there is a rabbinic obligation to undertake that obligation. Note that the Sages could have obligated you in the ketubah liabilities even without your signing, like any other rabbinic law that obligates us. But they chose to obligate us to become obligated by force of a contract.
B. An act of sale or consecration is an act of the owner, and an owner’s acts apply only to what is in his possession. By contrast, inheritance is not an act of the owner. It happens automatically (the Torah does it), and therefore there is no need for the property to be in his possession. It may be that for this reason even a minor can inherit, even though a minor cannot acquire by Torah law.
This expression is known in the name of Rabbi Chaim, and his intent is to explain why, on the one hand, the ketubah is considered a debt (with practical ramifications regarding a lien on property sold to purchasers), even though in practice the husband is not yet obligated, since he has not yet divorced his wife. Of course, all this is according to the view that the ketubah was not given to be collected during his lifetime; but according to the view that it was, then it is considered a full-fledged debt whose time of payment has simply not yet arrived.