Yevamot 34

In today’s daf (Yevamot 34b) we find a curious teaching of Rav Yochanan that: כל ששהתה אחר בעלה עשר שנים ונשאת שוב אינה יולדת – ‘any woman who waited ten years after the death of her husband and then remarries will not bear children [with her future husband]’.

Interestingly, immediately following this teaching, we are told that Rav Nachman qualified this statement and explained that this rule only applies where the woman did not plan to remarry during those ten years, whereas if she did plan to remarry she can still conceive.

We are then told a story about Rava’s wife who waited ten years between the death of her first husband Rami bar Chama and marrying Rava – after which she then had children. Upon being challenged by Rava as to how this could be so, she explained that during the 10-year gap she wanted and waited to marry Rava.

Then we are told that a certain woman challenged Rav Yosef by saying, ‘I waited ten years after my first husband died before remarrying yet I gave birth’. In response, Rav Yosef scolded her and said, ‘do not cast aspersions on the words of the Sages’, after which she revealed that she’d had sexual relations with someone between the death of her first husband and her marriage to her second.

As we find with many comparable teachings in the Gemara where a certain medical or biological outcome is stated by a great Sage as certainty, the tone of this thread seems to be about emphasizing the timeless truth of the words of our Sages. Yet it is noteworthy that within this discussion is a qualifier of Rav Nachman – who lived a generation or so after Rav Yochanan – as if to teach that while we should not cast aspersions on the words of our Sages, we must know and understand what Chazal actually said because when we overstretch the statements of Chazal and claim that they promised certain outcomes that are not realised either for the good or the bad, it can lead people to question the wisdom and truth of our Sages.

And this now brings me to the Meiri who adds a single word into the original teaching – which either suggests that this is what he thinks Rav Yochanan originally said, or perhaps what he believes is what we should understand by what Rav Yochanan said, writing כל ששהתה אחר בעלה עשר שנים ברוב נשים אינה מתעברת – ‘any woman who waited ten years after the death of her husband and then remarries will, IN MOST CASES, not bear children [with her future husband]’.

Admittedly, some commentaries struggle to understand the Meiri because were this to be what Rav Yochanan actually said then the two stories brought by the Gemara would seemingly be irrelevant – which is why it would appear that by adding the word ברוב, the Meiri is telling us what he believes to be what we should understand from this teaching, and that even if this was an absolute rule in the time of Rav Yochanan, he did not feel that it could be stated as an absolute rule in his time.

But surely the Meiri is also casting aspersions on the words of the Sages? The answer to this question is twofold. Firstly, already from the time of the Geonim we were taught not to absolutely rely on certain medical or biological information found in Chazal – which suggests that when we have nothing but the words of our Sages then we should rely on it, but when we have scientific knowledge we must then consider how to reconcile the words of our Sages with scientific fact. And secondly, by adding this qualifier, I believe that the Meiri is actually defending the words of the Sages because, as previously mentioned, when we overstretch the statements of Chazal and claim that they promised certain outcomes that are not realised either for the good or the bad, it can lead people to question the wisdom and truth of our Sages.