Q&A: A High Priest Marrying a 12-Year-Old Virgin
A High Priest Marrying a 12-Year-Old Virgin
Question
We learned in the Torah portion of Emor that there is a positive commandment that the High Priest marry only a virgin maiden between the ages of 12 and 12-and-a-half. Even though the age is not written explicitly in the verses, but only the requirement of virginity, this is how the Sages interpreted it.
In today’s reality, marrying off a 12-year-old girl to a man sounds absolutely insane. I wouldn’t wish that on my daughter or on anyone else.
What are we supposed to do with this Jewish law when the Temple is rebuilt? Are there ways to change it or interpret it differently? Is it enough to say, “Today this isn’t possible”? Do we need a Sanhedrin / prophecy for that?
Answer
Absolutely. There is no reason not to interpret the verses differently. According to the rules of Jewish law, something established by a formal count requires another formal count to permit it, and what was established by the Sanhedrin requires a Sanhedrin. But that is only a technical limitation. No one is going to marry off a High Priest to a 12-year-old girl nowadays.
Discussion on Answer
Is legal workaround possible, for example that he marries a girl and she doesn’t immerse and doesn’t know him until she comes of age, and then he gives her a bill of divorce and she goes off to marry whomever she wants
Tomer, that depends on the question of what gives the authority to laws written in the Talmud. If the authority is based on public acceptance, then opposite acceptance can revoke it. You would need a consensus among the halakhic decisors of the generation, even without a Sanhedrin.
Nehemiah, legal workarounds are always possible.
It’s also possible that he could resign from his position and another priest who is already married could enter the role, so they wouldn’t need to marry him off to a 12-year-old girl.
The source of the interpretation is the verse, “And he shall take a wife in her virginity” — excluding a grown woman whose virginity has been depleted. According to what is known to us today, during puberty the hymen becomes thicker and more flexible, and over the years it may tear or become diminished. I do not know what the reality was in the time of the Sages or what they knew about it*, but since the interpretation of the verse is relevant only to the state of virginity and not to age, all that is required is to make sure the virginity is still intact, and that could be at an older age as well.
Indeed, if the High Priest is older, it is unlikely that a woman of a suitable age with intact virginity would be found, but one could simply choose a young High Priest. Likewise, because of this problem they might issue a halakhic ruling in accordance with Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon, who validate a grown woman whose virginity has been diminished (the Sanhedrin is not bound by Maimonides, who ruled in accordance with Rabbi Meir).
*It is possible that because the membrane becomes more flexible, it was accepted in their time to think that it had become diminished, even though in reality that is not the case. It is also possible that the reality was different in their time, as with many other things.
So for example, this law is written in tannaitic sources (the Mishnah, Tosefta) and of course also in the Talmud. So what is required in order to revoke it: a Sanhedrin or “another count” (what does that mean in this case)?
What is the procedure for revoking a rabbinic interpretation of the Sages that appears in the Mishnah/Talmud?