Today’s daf discusses a mishnah that appeared back on 42a:
A man does not have a presumption of ownership with regard to his wife’s property, nor does she have a presumption with regard to her husband’s property.
It turns out that even if the husband brings proof that he purchased the property from his wife, the Gemara questions his claim:
Let her say, “I did it only to please my husband.” Didn’t we learn in a mishnah that one who purchased from a man and returned and purchased it from the wife, the sale is nullified? Apparently, there she said, “I did it only to please my husband.” Let her say here too, “I did it only to please my husband.”
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The woman who sold the field to her husband now claims that she didn’t want to sell the land to him, but did it to make her husband happy (perhaps with an element of undue pressure from the man who has so much legal power over her). A mishnah from Gittin is quoted as support for this opinion:
A person bought a field from a man, and later returned to buy his wife’s claim on the land.
In other words, even if the man sold his land, and the wife agreed that in the case of his death she would not claim an inheritance from that land, this agreement does not hold, as she can argue that she only sold her rights to appease her husband.
This explanation was applied to the giving of the Torah by Rabbi Yosef Dov Baer Halevi Soloveitchik, a 19th-century Lithuanian rabbi (and great-grandfather of the well-known American Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik). In Exodus 19:3, when Moses receives the Torah on Mt. Sinai, God instructs him, “Thus you shall say to the House of Jacob and declare to the Children of Israel …” Because the Gemara uses the word house as a metonym for wife, the phrase House of Jacob is often interpreted to mean specifically the women of Israel. Thus, God instructs Moses to speak to the women (House of Jacob) and the men (Children of Israel). Rabbi Soloveitchik comments:
“Women preceded men, as that is the halakhah: ‘One who purchased from a man and returned and purchased it from the wife — the sale is nullified,’ for she can say, ‘I did it to please my husband.’ This means that even when she doesn’t agree to the sale inwardly, but she does it anyway because of her husband’s will, [it is not a valid sale] and therefore it is customary in purchases to conduct the sale with the wife and later return to the husband. So too in the case of giving the Torah, God’s will was for the women to reveal their opinion, whether they wanted to accept the Torah with goodwill without any force or coercion. Therefore, God commanded [Moses] to tell the women first and hear their opinion, and afterwards the men.”
While the gendered element of a wife needing her husband’s permission or approval to make significant decisions may ring antiquated to our ears, Rabbi Soloveitchik is drawing an important lesson from our Gemara and applying it more broadly: It is important to present the proposition of a transaction in a way that gives the other full freedom of choice. This applies not only to significant financial transactions or decisions in one’s life, but to the ultimate decision that God presents to God’s people: whether or not to accept the Torah. God wanted to ensure that everyone had a say in the decision, and that meant orchestrating events so that those who were more subject to societal pressure could honestly give voice to their opinions, letting them be heard.
Read all of Bava Batra 49 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 13, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
