I recall an elementary school rabbi telling me they got "engaged" when she was three, and they weren't married until she was 12.
1. Sarah was 90 when Yitzchok was born.
-----> This is a posuk.
2. Sarah died at 127 immediately after the Akeidah, so Yitzchok was 37 at the Akeidah.
------> There are real problems with the idea that Sarah died immdiiately after the Akeida. For starters, the text gives us geneology before reporting Sarah's death. Also, Abraham, we're told returned to be'er sheva after the akeida, yet Sarah died in Hebron.
Also, the Ibn Exra argued that Y could not have bveen 37 at the Akeida.
3. Immediately after Sarah's death Avrohom hears the news of the birth of Rivkah, so she was born when Yitzchok was 37.
-------------> The reader, however, is told about Rivka's birth BEFORE he is told of Sarah's death.
4. Yitzchok was 40 when he married Rivkah, so she must have been 3 when they married.
--------------------> Unless he was 13 at the Akeida, which is the view of the IE. If Y was 13 at the Akeida, R was 27 when they married.
DB:
how come you never responded to my email?
MC - maybe I didn't see it. Pls try again.
Doesn't Seider `Olam Rabba say that she was fourteen, at least according to one girsa?
The real scandle is this: If there is so much room to say that she was not three, why do school teachers insist that she was?
The teacher told us that Rivka was three, and that was it. We were too young to realize that this was seriously odd, and probably too timid to argue.
Speak for your own kids. One of my kids already asked me about it.
Doesn't Seider `Olam Rabba say that she was fourteen, at least according to one girsa?
Yes. That's in the tosfos that DB referanced.
About the marriage itself, you could maybe say that it was the ancient Near East and they had child brides and marriages arranged at an early age, etc. The question for me is all the seemingly grown-up things Rivka does earlier. And I don't see why the "Orthodox skeptics" have any special claim on the question.
I was all set to be my usual conbatative self (only towards you, DB, for some reason 
) but then I read this:
>The problem here isn't with Rashi or the midrshim he cites. The problem is that we got just one side of the story when we were in school. The teacher told us that Rivka was three, and that was it.
Which is exactly right. It is, as I've called it, the lucky midrash. It's madenning--not that people want to adopt this opinion as the one they agree. That many seem to scarcely agree that the midrash that hasn't made the canon is even a possibility, let alone closer to what really happened.
I could care less how old she was when she got married. But even in that day and time, who would have a 3 year old drawing water??? The Tosfot is usually overlooked, and honestly it's it's a relatively ineffectual band-aid, when dealing with the age issue in Torah.
The other big deal from Akeida is the return of Ishmael, and although many rabbis will admit Ishmael did tshuva, they dismiss it as "goyish" tshuva. Methinks that this caveat is more political than anything else, but I'm surprised more liberal/peace-loving frummies wouldn't utilize it as a message for tolerance, in the hectic times we experience now.
>But even in that day and time, who would have a 3 year old drawing water???
Of course. Same thing about the idea of Avraham "discovering" God at three versus at 60.
That's just illustrative of the midrashic mindset. The joke is on us when we take it as written without further clarification.
In the case of Avraham, maybe the difference in views have to do with whether he came to a mature or almost childlike understanding. Maybe the age of three is supposed to show that to find God should be close to instinctive. There are any number of reasons for the different opinions; to just leave it as comments about his age is ridiculous.
Same thing with Rivka. Maybe the one view is motivated by mathematical precision. Maybe its motivated to show how extraordinary she was that she had to be fetched from hundreds of miles away. But these views should be the point of departure for us.
I've seen this exact, word for word, post here:
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...he-
married.html
The reason why the opinion that Rivkah was 3 years old is more widely accepted is because the Gemora seems to side with Rashi's explanation.
I've seen this exact, word for word, post here:
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...he- married.html
That's me, and I'll prove it to you.
Now again, this is the stuff! Keep it up Dov bear- I don't even remember much about that guy, "Great Hatter"? or something like that, who closed his blog last week.
No matter how extraordinary she was, would her family have let her make her own decision about leaving immediately if she were three? She also lets herself down off the camel when she sees Isaac (unless she really falls off), so she must have also been really coordinated and tall for a toddler.
Also, how immediately would Avraham have gotten the family news over hundreds of miles? It's not presented as breaking news -- there are a lot people mentioned, and they weren't all born at the same time. Rivka could have been born earlier, and he only hears about it now.
That's me, and I'll prove it to you.
I wasn't suggesting anything. Just saying other places that I've seen it.
How could you prove it?
That's me, and I'll prove it to you.
Probably not necessary. It sounds like you.
That's me, and I'll prove it to you.
It better be you.
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...- bracelets.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...- bracelets.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...-it- matter.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...2005...har-not-
me.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...ogsp...ny-drop-
to.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...2005...ny-drop-
to.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...ess- jewish.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...ess- jewish.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...blogsp...black-
skin.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005.../2005...rse-of-
ham.html
Links got screwed up, I'll try again...
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...-
bracelets.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...-
bracelets.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...-it-
matter.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...har-not-
me.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...ny-drop-
to.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...ny-drop-
to.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...ess-
jewish.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...ess-
jewish.html
http://jewishurbanlegends.blogsp...black-
skin.html
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2005...rse-of-
ham.html
It is me.
*grabs a pitch fork*
Make him prove it! YAARRRR!!!
On a pedantic note -
It's not "the Ibn Ezra," because "Ibn Ezra" isn't an acronym (like Rambam or Rashi) - it's part of his name. Abraham ibn Ezra. So stop calling him "the" Ibn Ezra!
I could tell by your use of the royal we.
Why did you not let us in on your earlier works DB?
Proof will be forthcoming just as soon as I remember the password. Meantime, look at the spelling (especially of words I commonly get wrong)
It's clearly him. It's the thamesmen to his spinal tap.
Or the quarrymen to his beatles.
It should be quite simple to prove. Just add a new post to Jewishurbanlegands saying "I am DoveBear". 
That's what I planned to do when I said "I'll prove it" but I don't remember my password. I've written to blogger.
You should delete that other site and only have this one.
Maybe it's the Jimi Hendrix Experience to his Fat Mattress.
>No matter how extraordinary she was, would her family have let her make her own decision about leaving immediately if she were three? She also lets herself down off the camel when she sees Isaac (unless she really falls off), so she must have also been really coordinated and tall for a toddler.
I don't think the point of that view is that the historical Rivka was three, so your questions about making this view "fit" are misplaced, in my opinion. The questions to ask, rather, are what the age of three is supposed to signify? Is it meant to say "look how capable Rivka is"? Or "Rivka didn't really live in Besuek's pagan environment for very long"?
Ultimately there isn't going to be any satisfactory explanation for how a three year old fed camels and got married, so why should we look to make it work?
If you'd like to imagine that Yitzchak took a wife who needed a two-hour nap, and help getting dressed, go ahead, you have plenty of support..
Sarah also needed a two hour nap and help getting dressed when she had Yitzhak! It is a trend for him.
so why should we look to make it work?
b/ it is in Rashi....
so why should we look to make it work?
b/ it is in Rashi....
Rashi looks to make things fit. He doesn't try to make things historically/scientificly correct.
>b/ it is in Rashi....
You misunderstood me. I agree that we should treat the view with seriousness and explore it. I disagree that we should construct sophistries to explain how the historical Rivka was three years old, no "I saw a toddler on TV playing the violin" nonsense.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me, to try to fit her in as a three year old in fact without understanding the implications of a 3 year old Rivka vs a 14 year old Rivka is to miss the point, which to me are the implications of the two views, not how we can understand a three year old camel driver who marries a 37 year old.
You make two assumptions in your posts, DB. The first is that teachers/Rebbes only 'fed' us the 3-yr-old opinion when we were young. That isn't true, at least not to me in my Yeshiva. I remember being told a variety of ages, even back then.
The second assumption is that children back then were just like children today. Children 50 and 100 years ago ween't like children today so why is it so difficult to believe that children 4000 years ago were different than today. I don't know if 3 is a valid number or not but to say it is not based upon today's children and standards are, IMO, not valid.
DB
Don't know were you went to school but open up any mikras gedolis chumash and look at the das zkanim who disagrees with rashi. Many rishonim take rashi to task for saying she was three. No-one ever hid that from me. The fact stands that rashi says she was three and the standard is to learn rashi. Why rashi quoted this medrash and not the seder olam is an entirely different matter.
Q and S are basically correct with regard to your original question, why 3 years old is taught in school. Rashi comes only to explain teh questions that a five year old would have and this answers a great many of them.
The two central ones:
1) Why is the whole genealogy brought there?
2) Why did Rivka get 20 years of childlessness instead of just ten?
However, we can trust that mystical approach was really behind it. You see, as usual, our forefathers and foremothers were mythical supermen and wonderwomen, not actual humans with human limitations, so no question like this can ever get started. I think this revelation was first discovered by the Besht when he was 3 years old. It was during one of his shiurim with Achiya HaShiloni when he had wondered into the forest as was his custom. Sigh!
"If there is so much room to say that she was not three, why do school teachers insist that she was?"
It's a kal vahomer: if she could shlepp that bucket, which must have been proportionally heavier for her at three, you should surely be able to shlepp it at your advanced age -- and I and my camels are thirsty.
Really, don't people sometimes relish the feeling of strength that can supervene on believing something others reject as too improbable?
You see, as usual, our forefathers and foremothers were mythical supermen and wonderwomen, not actual humans with human limitations, so no question like this can ever get started.
Are you this cynical about secular stuff? Agree or disagree: Unconventional harmonies in the works of Mozart are probably just mistakes.
>Really, don't people sometimes relish the feeling of strength that can supervene on believing something others reject as too improbable?
That's a VERY good point.
Child brides were common in many ancient and not-so-ancient cultures. People were often betrothed (I think that might be an exclusively Church-related term, sorry) when they were mere babes and then officially married when they came of age. I wouldn't be surprised to find the same thing in ancient Judaism.
I'm curious -- does any commentor support the idea that the marriage was consumated when Rivkah was 3? DO the sages mention the possibility of a "betrothal"?
GoldaLeah,
1) Ever heard of kiddushin and nisuin?
2) Halacha actually forbids marriage under bat mitzva age and without the woman's consent. But this was a) before the Matan Torah so it's problematic to call it "jewish" and b) there's no prove for it, it's just Rashi's maths.
Jewropean -- yes, but are kiddushin and nisuin mentioned in connection with Yitzak and Rivkah?
Goldaleah
The mizrachi for one.
is there a problem with the forebearers appearing superhuman?
and one musn't assume that aging was then as it is now after all who lives to 133 years old
why can not a 3 year old be mature enough to bring a bucket of water, ride a camel and say yes I would like to go with this eliezer fellow?
why can not a 3 year old be mature enough to bring a bucket of water, ride a camel and say yes I would like to go with this eliezer fellow?
...especially when he gives her lots of shiny jewelery.
The way I was taught... Rashi says she was 3, but that was only betrothal; they weren't actually married until later, and she didn't have a child until 23.
I don't think the point of that view is that the historical Rivka was three, so your questions about making this view "fit" are misplaced, in my opinion.
It was as I heard it (though I wasn't taught it as The Answer, just one theory).
i'm just gonna chalk it up to another square peg of torah that Rashi has failed to fit in the round hole, Tiku!
>i'm just gonna chalk it up to another square peg of torah that Rashi has failed to fit in the round hole, Tiku!
I wouldn't be so smug. Richard Elliott Friedman (not exactly a traditionalist) puts it beautifully.
>Studying the Torah with Rashi's commentary is a joy because he shows what questions can be asked of a text. Look here! Is this a contradiction? Look here! This can have two opposite meanings. Which is right? Why does the Torah not tell us this piece of information that we need to understand the text? Why does it give us this fact that seems to be of no significance at first glance?
>Rashi wrote his commentary nine hundred years ago. Recent commentaries for laypersons are different. They have been written as introductory notes to help explain the text and are often composite collections of comments from scholars of the past and from current biblical scholars. This is different from what Commentary meant classically. The purpose of Rashi's commentary and of Ibn Ezra's and Ramban's was to show the readers new things in the text, problems that they had not seen, or to address old problems that had not been solved--and then to offer the commentator's solutions to those problems.
Rashthe great thing about Rashi is that his eyes are very open to the fact that Text of the Torah is far from immaculate. An Orthodox scholar today says "Yes but". Rashi said "Yes because."
perhaps he said three because she was innocent as a three year old, having no idea of her father's sinfulness? mabye she was as pure as a three year old (which can, incidently have many widely diffrent implications) mabye she was as honest as a three year old, mabye she was... (etc)
mabye we would be looking for the possible positives here and not the negatives (and i personaly don't want to hear that she was a defiant as a three year old though that could be a compliment about some things too)
How honest are three-year-olds?
s,
Although I honor the fact that Rashi certainly brings down great questions, in this case there is no way his explanation could be termed a great answer, or even a digestable possibility. Yet it persists as one of those kiruv moments where a skeptic will have a tremendous bone to pick. I've stopped debating with my chavrusa when these moments come up, because as much as I want to connect to torah, no amount of "twisting" or possible alternative explanations can excuse the ridiculousness of the possibility in the first place, and that Rashi- the commentator used as the foundation for much of the studying that goes on in these scenarios, could even present it, dumbfounds me.
I was taught that there is another Girsa in Rashi that she was 13 not 3.
From the Shema Yisrael article linked by DB:
"And even if the Da'as Zekeinim M.T. does not concur with the latter Medrash cited by Rashi, he will still need to explain why Avraham procrastinated for three years. Why would the same Avraham Avinu about whom the Pasuk testifies "And Avraham arose early in the morning", for the sake of a Mitzvah, bide his time here?
Rashi, based on his own view of Rivkah's age, answers the question beautifully. Avraham did indeed intend to marry off Yitzchak immediately, and so he would have done, had Hashem not informed him about Rivkah. And it was only after He did, that Avraham had no option but to wait three years until Rivkah was ready to marry. But according to the Da'as Zekeinim M.T.[who holds Rivka was 14 at marriage and therefore 11 when G-d told Abraham about her], there seems to be no logical reason as to why, once he knew about Rivkah, he did not send Eliezer to Choron immediately."
Perhaps Avraham waited until Rivka was old enough to have children.
That he appears to have done so – and that Rivka did not give birth until Yitzhak prayed for her after 20 years of being childless – adds to the 'supernatural' nature of Yakov's (and Esav's) birth, continuing the theme set by the miraculous birth of Yitzhak, and therefore the miraculous, chosen nature of the Jewish people.
This **may** be similar to pagan miraculous birth stories, told to prove the chosenness or divinity of the progeny of those births.
How honest are three-year-olds?
& | Homepage | 11.14.05 - 9:01 pm |
Pretty honest, actually. Check out relevant psychological research. I recently read some stuff on the development of social cognition in children that's relevant to this point.
Rashi's view of Rivkah's age at her marriage, and that of his midrashic and talmudic sources, is manifestly arguable. The torah itself gives no real indication of Yitzchak's age at the Akeida, and no indication of Rivkah's age at her marriage. It does call her a "na-arah", as noted by the referenced Tosafot, which ordinarily designates a girl who is no longer a child. That designation and the behavior of Rivkah when she encounters Avraham's servant certainly isn't consistent with the idea that she was a 3 year old at the time.
My own preference is to assume, with Rashi and his sources, that Sarah died just after the Akeidah. The fact that she was in Chevron at the time that Avraham lived in Beersheva may just mean that she was visiting friends there, or was greatly distressed at the prospect of losing her son. That son was then 37 at the time of the Akeidah when Avraham heard the news about the existence of a great niece, Rivkah. That news, however, was presumably old by the time it was conveyed to Avraham [communications between northern Mesopotamia (Aram) and southern Canaan (Be'ersheva) must have been rather infrequent].
Hence, Rivkah was basically a teenager when she became betrothed to Yitzchak (a common phenomenon in biblical times). A teen-age girl living in a culture where early marriage is expected is going to be more mature than a modern teen-ager. Her physical and intellectual/emotional responses to the unexpected appearance of great uncle Avraham's agent are then not surprising. Her intelligence, character, maturity, and physical beauty are what enabled Yitzchak to love her and to be comforted over the unexpected, if not tragic, death of his mother.
Y. Aharon
Commenting by HaloScan
