Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Kiddushin 2a - Why say נקנית?

We recently started Kiddushin in Daf Yomi. Here are a few thoughts about the opening gemara.

The Mishna (Kiddushin 2a):

האשה נקנית בשלוש דרכים, וקונה את עצמה בשתי דרכים.
נקנית: בכסף, בשטר ובביאה.

The gemara (2a):

האשה נקנית - מאי שנא הכא דתני "האשה נקנית" ומ"ש התם דתני "האיש מקדש"? משום דקא בעי למתני כסף

That is, why use the word נקנית here, where it is a language of kinyan, rather than mekadesh as it appears in the Mishna in the beginning of the second perek in Kiddushin 41a:

האיש מקדש בו ובשלוחו האשה מתקדשת בה ובשלוחה האיש מקדש את בתו כשהיא נערה בו ובשלוחו:

Or, to refine the gemara’s question somewhat, since we focused only on the question of swapping out shorashim, why not say האשה מתקדשת in our Mishna?

And the answer the gemara gives is that since kesef is one of the three methods, the language of kinyan is appropriate here.

I would run with the gemara’s question and give a different answer. If we learn through all the Mishnayot in the first perek first, we see a pattern and a structure emerge:

2a
האשה נקנית בשלוש דרכים…
היבמה נקנית בביאה....
עבד עברי נקנה בכסף ובשטר...
הנרצע נקנה ברציעה...
עבד כנעני נקנה בכסף ובשטר ובחזקה…
בהמה גסה נקנית במסירה והדקה בהגבהה…
נכסים שיש להם אחריות נקנין בכסף ובשטר ובחזקה שאין להם אחריות אין נקנין אלא במשיכה

The answer to the question is then obvious. The point is to go through a whole bunch of different kinyanim, formal binding acquisitions. These differ depending on what it is being “acquired”. And so, it is appropriate to use the word נקנית or נקנה throughout. If we would use האשה מתקדשת, then we wouldn’t be able to carry through this language throughout the perek. Possibly we could continue it for yevama, but no further. We also couldn’t use the words וקונה את עצמה (or the equivalent by yevama or eved) as a simple flip of the expression.

The gemara, elsewhere, analyzes other bits of language. For instance, why not use נקנית in the second perek? Why use derachim. Be’ezrat Hashem, these questions are for follow-up posts.

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