We all know the famous Rashi based on the Seder Olam that Rivka was 3 years old when she met Eliezer and married Yitzchak.
The Sifri in וזאת הברכה says that Rivka lived 133 years. If you work backwards from her death she got married at the age of 14 (see Tosafos in יבמות ס"א for the exact calculation).
Why did Rashi pick the medrash that she was 3 against the gemara? It would seem that Rashi thought that was the simpler pshat in the pesukim. It all seems to hinge on when the akeida was. The following facts are mentioned in the Chumash itself.
1. Yitzchak was 37 when Sara died (she was 90 when he was born and died at 127).
2. Yitzchak was 40 when he married Rivka
3. Rivka was born around the time of the Akeida (see the end of וירא).
If the Akeida was when Yitzchak was 37 then Rivka was only 3 when she married. On the other hand if the akeida was 10 years earlier then she was around 14.
The notion that Rivka was 3 years old at the time of her marriage to Yitzchak is untenable. Could a 3 year old girl go and water the camels? Could a 3 year old consent to marriage? It's just silly to read the dialogue in the Chumash between Rivka and Eliezer and what she is doing and believe that she is 3. Nowhere else in the Torah do we find any evidence that children matured more quickly then we do now, and of course from a scientific/reality point of view that is a non-starter.
The question is how could the Medrash have such an opinion and Rashi quote it when it is so patently ridiculous? Since Rashi quotes this this is the opinion that everyone knows.
Was betrothing children as young as three considered strange historically speaking? I'm going to guess it's not out of the ordinary. Perhaps Rashi quoted this midrash to justify some child marriage shenanigans going on in his own time.
ReplyDeleteOf course you are correct that the story itself really doesn't lend itself to a three year old Rivkah.