Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Gittin 55a - Feeding Terumah through Rabbinic Marriage

The gemara says that a chareshes who marries a kohein pikeiach cannot eat even teruma d'rabonon, even though her marriage is binding m'drabonon. The reason is that we make a gezeira of a case where a cheresh kohen marries a pikachas and will feed her teruma d'oraysa, and since she is a pikachas she will be violating the issur of a non-kohen eating teruma. But we are not concerned by a kohein pikeiach who marries a chareshes that if he feeds her teruma d'rabonon, he will come to feed her teruma d'oraysa, because even if he does, so what, she is not chayev in mitzvos.
The question is, based on Tosafos who says that included in the heter of the mishna to feed a ketana teruma d'rabonon, is to even feed her b'yadayim (which is permitted even if we assume like the shulchan aruch at the end of hilchos shabbos that one is not allowed to feed a child even an issur d'rabonon, because through the rabbinic marriage the teruma d'rabonon is permitted to her and not considered an issur at all). That is why the mishna only allows the ketana who marries a kohein to eat teruma d'rabonon, but not teruma d'oraysa, because the husband will be in violation of "feeding" issur to a child b'yadayim. Based on this why can't we say that the issur when a kohein pikeiach marries a chareshes is that if we allow her to eat teruma d'rabonon, he will come to feed her b'yadayim, teruma d'oraysa and violate the prohibition of feeding issur to a child? Similarly, why is the mishna matir to feed teruma d'rabonon to the young girl, we should be concerned he will come to feed her b'yadayim teruma d'oraysa and violate the prohibition of feeding issur to a child? [Tosafos only explains why we are not gozer that if we allow the young girl to eat d'rabonon we don't make a gezeira that she will come to eat teruma d'oraysa, since even if she does, she is only a ketana and not liable. But, why aren't we concerned that her husband will "feed" her, in which case he would be doing an issur of feeding her issur d'oraysa?].
This question is asked by the m'lo ha'roim.

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