How do we explain biblical child marriages

etky

Sun, Nov 11 2018, 3:05 pm

amother wrote:

This is an interesting pshat. How are we to understand this though? Rashi is there to help us understand the Torah, and if this is what rashi really and truly meant, why didn't he say it that way? Why didn't rashi say that rivka was a spiritual 3 years old since 3 years had passed since the akeida. Instead rashi simply says that rivka was 3. That's it. This leads to tremendous confusion, skeptisism and doubt. I think many of you here are better than me and easily say, sure, that's what rashi meant. But for someone like myself who struggles with yiddishkeit I honestly find this explanation incredulous and hard to believe. I guess this is why I struggle in general. The entire Torah is based on these sort of pshatim- when it says one thing and really means something else.

WADR, this interpretation about the elevated soul entering Rivka three years before her marriage is just one possibility. It's exegesis on Rashi's exegesis. You can take it or leave it.
Rashi was quoting the chronology in Seder Olam Rabah regarding Rivkah's age. This midrash builds off other midrashim that link Sarah's death to the akeida and that rely on the smichut parshiyot between the akeidah and the report of Rivkah's birth to establish her age at her marriage. None of this chronology is pshuto shel mikra and as other posters already said, there are alternate chronologies that arrive at a more realistic age.

amother

Linen

Sun, Nov 11 2018, 3:21 pm

etky wrote:

I understand. I'm just bothered that we can't learn the Torah based on what it says in the passuk. Soon we will read that rochel and leah concocted a scheme to trick yackov into marrying leah. Of course there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to learn it where everyone involved is a huge tzaddik/tzaddaikes. I guess I'm from the minority of people who are deeply disturbed by the plain face value of what the simple reading of the passuk says. Same goes for the story of yehuda and tamar and the story about dovid hamelech and batsheva is indescribable.

amother

Burlywood

Sun, Nov 11 2018, 3:30 pm

amother wrote:

I hear you op. I'm troubled by many of the parshas in sefer beraishes. They are not understandable at face value to the way we think today.
1. Noach was a tzaddik yet he got drunk and had relations with his daughters.

Noach didn't sleep with his daughters; he just got drunk and was uncovered.
It was Lot who slept with his daughters because they tricked their father into sleeping with them but they did it for a "good reason." They thought the world had ended and there were no more people left after Sdom so they wanted to continue to procreate.

causemommysaid

Mon, Nov 12 2018, 5:50 pm

amother wrote:

The Torah is not a feel good story book. Nor was it written by God to be taken at face value. The point is to go into depth and truly understand the story.

The story of Rochel and Leah is extraordinarily deep and has many layers and factors. The future of the Jewish people depended on Leah marrying Yaakov. Rochel knew that and did what she had to to make it happen. You notice Yaakov never once faulted her for what she did. Also, dont think Yaakov didnt know that it might happen. He was very aware of who he was dealing with and the minute it happened he accepted it as Gods will.

The story of Yehuda and Tamar is also complicated. It feeds in directly to the story of Dovid and Batsheva. There is an opinion that Moshiach must come from scandal in order to truly bring about Geula. Notice how the ancestors of Moshiach are riddled with scandal. First Yehudah and Tamar, Next is the scandal of Rus and Boaz who many in the generation said he cannot marry because she was a moavi. Moav is the result of incest between Lot and his daughter. Next the mother of Dovid is accused of adultery since he looks nothing like his brothers. Next is the saga between Dovid and Batsheva. None of this is an accident. Reading it at face value is foolish and you miss the actual lessons and meaning that the Torah is teaching.

God is not linear and neither is his Torah.