When a couple gets married, they each become a part of the other’s family. While not exactly family, their parents become connected as well. Most languages lack a term to describe this relationship, but Yiddish has one — machatunim — and it has found its way into both Hebrew and Jewish English in the modern period.
Rav Hisda could have made use of this term in today’s conversation when he offered the following opinion:
The father of the groom and the father of the bride can testify about each other because they are considered to each other only like a lid on a barrel.
While machatunim have a familial connection, Rav Hisda allows one to testify in a court case that involves the other because although their kids are married, they are not actually family. Rather, they are related like “a lid on a barrel.” Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, from whose English language commentary this translation comes, explains the metaphor: The lid is not part of the barrel, but merely rests on top of it. For me, this conjures up images of merchants on the lower east side of New York City selling pickles out of wooden barrels with plastic lids. Both the barrel and the lid help keep the pickles fresh, but they are clearly of different origins.
Rabbi Marcus Jastrow, author of one of the preeminent talmudic dictionaries, translates this phrase differently: “the father of the husband and the father of the wife are no more kinsmen than is a basket related to a barrel.” In other words, baskets and barrels might both be containers, but they serve different purposes. This interpretation of Rav Hisda’s metaphor puts the two sets of parents on an even footing. In doing so, it has the added benefit of contributing to shalom bayit (peace in the home) as it saves the couple from the argument over which of their parents are the barrel and which are the lid.
Rav Hisda’s ruling is technically correct, machatunim are not related so they should be able to participate in legal proceedings involving the parents of their son- or daughter-in-law. Yet, if you have machatunim, or even just in-laws, you might be able to imagine how precarious allowing one set to participate in legal proceedings that involve the other might be. So, you might not be surprised to discover that Rabbi Moshe Isserles, in his gloss on the Shulchan Aruch, notes that some legal authorities do not extend Rav Hisda’s permissiveness to allow folks to serve as judges in cases involving their machatunim. Why? For the same reason that we exclude “those that like or hate a litigant.” It’s likely that machatunim have strong feelings for each other, in one direction or another. Either way, their emotions might become an obstacle to arriving at a just verdict.
Read all of Sanhedrin 28 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on January 14, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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