رسالة: HUC 1119

الوصف

Letter in Hebrew. Late and non-Geniza. The names of the sender and addressee are not preserved. The sender is evidently a circuit judge, based on this letter and his similar letter HUC 1118 (PGPID 39286). Here he describes a fascinating legal case that took place "in an assembly of the men of the city" of שוכו, potentially Zakho in Kurdistan, which had a prominent Jewish community. The sender explains that he will tell an abridged version of the story because he has already written several other letters but received no response. He arrived in שוכו and attended the assembly, and cross examined "the father of the boy. 'Tell me about the marriage of your young son.' He said to me in the assembly of the men of the city, 'I had an older daughter and married her off, and I had a young son, and I said (to myself), 'I'll give my daughter to a man and bring a wife for my son in place of my daughter for domestic work, and when he grows up she will be his wife.' I said, 'Your son knew all this, that you were bringing a wife for your son? Or he told you to bring him a wife? And he understood the nature of a wife?' The father of the boy said to me, 'My son did not understand the nature of a wife, and I did not tell him that I would bring him a wife, and he did not know what a wife was, rather I told my son that I would bring a wife for my son in place of my daughter for domestic work, until he grows up and then she would be his wife.' And all the men of the city who were at the assembly said, 'This is how it happened. He did not tell his son that he would bring him a wife, and his son did not know what a wife was, rather he himself came up with the idea and brought a wife for domestic work in place of his daughter.' I said to him, 'How old was your son when you brought a wife for him?' He said, 'I don't know.' Another got up, 'He was about 14.' I said to the father, 'When you brought a wife for your son, did he have two pubic hairs or not?' Everyone present said, 'He didn't have two pubic hairs when he brought a wife for his son.' I said to them, 'Is it possible even so that he had two pubic hairs?' They said, 'We don't know.' Another man got up and said, 'When his wife fled from him she said, "I don't want him, because he is not like everyone else." I checked his pubic area in front of other people and I didn't see any hair, he was like a young boy without hair. All this was on Passover when his wife fled. . . . there were no hairs and no follicles (? גומות) in his pubic area. . . .' And in the letter that I sent you before this one is the full story, and here I have abridged. The boy got sick (and evidently died), and she has fallen into an obligation of levirate marriage with a 6-year-old minor, and she has no rest for her feet, and there is no one to [....] in great danger, to the point of her wishing to change her religion. [I have explained] at length in the preceding letter." ASE