Очередная жемчужина, найденная в блоге проф. Марка Шапиро.
Внимание, вопрос: как вы думаете, почему в некоторых итальянских еврейских общинах непременно записывали, если девочка рождалась в пятницу?
Поскольку в данном случае мне трудно поверить, что здесь можно догадаться (впрочем, желающие могут попробовать свои силы) - ответ ниже.
Существовало достаточно распространенное поверье, что у женщин, родившихся в пятницу, нет девственной плевы! Соответственно, если после первой брачной ночи не было следов крови, но был документ, что женщина родилась в пятницу - муж и его семья не могли предъявить никаких претензий:
In previous centuries there was a belief among some that a girl who was born on Friday did not have betulim.
What is the origin of this belief? The first reference I found is in R. Isaac Lampronte of Ferrara’s (1679-1756) halakhic encyclopedia Pahad Yitzhak. R. Lampronte was also a doctor, so his recording of this medical legend is itself noteworthy.
In Pahad Yitzhak, s.v. na’arah, R. Lampronte mentions that in Italy the practice is that if a girl is born on Friday this fact is recorded, precisely in order to deal with the halakhic issue already mentioned. That is, if the husband will later assert that there was no dam betulim, this would not be regarded as a valid claim. R. Lampronte states that despite the Italian practice, he did not find any mention of the unique nature of girls born on Friday either in the Talmud or poskim, and that there is also no mention of it in scientific or medical works. He therefore claims that the assumption that girls born on Friday lack betulim should not be relied upon, as on the contrary, sometimes girls born on Friday indeed have belutim.
R. Hayyim Joseph David Azulai, who lived in Italy, also mentions the belief that girls born on Friday lack betulim. He says that he was told about this from distinguished people in Italy and Amsterdam. He also cites from the then unpublished section of Pahad Yitzhak just mentioned. As with R. Lampronte, R. Azulai is surprised by this biological assumption, because if it is true, the Sages would have mentioned something about it.
Many people have cited the Pahad Yitzhak and Hida, however, the story does not end there. There was another great rabbi in Italy, R. Daniel Tierni of Florence (died 1814), author of the commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Ikarei ha-Dat (הד”ט – playing on the abbreviation of his name). In his commentary to Yoreh Deah 21:10, he tells us that he saw additions that R. Lampronte made to the Pahad Yitzhak. These additions have not appeared in print, so we must be grateful for what R. Tierni preserved. Here R. Lampronte states that the entire matter is a complete falsehood, sheker gamur.[44] Yet R. Tierni adds that everywhere in Italy where he has lived, they are careful to record in the communal record whenever a baby girl is born on Friday to avoid problems when she later gets married. He notes that the non-Jews also do this. As for why there are girls born on Friday who have betulim, he explains this through astrology, and suggests that it depends when on Friday they are born, since only certain hours on Friday are under the rule of Venus.
As late as 1902, R. Isaac Raphael Ashkenazi (1826-1908), the rav of Ancona, writes that the practice of his city is to record the girls who are born on Friday, and he thinks this is what other communities should do as well.
В качестве иллюстрации - старинный брачный контракт итальянских евреев. Впрочем, об эротике в иудейском религиозном искусстве мы уже писали в своей электронной книге "Иудейские войны и древности начала Нового времени", которую все желающие по-прежнему могут приобрести.
