R' Wieder Factlet II

The mishnah is wrong.

Or at least, the Vilna Shas’ version has problems.

I’ve occasionally tried to learn Ketuvot on my own, and tend to get bogged down by the middle of the first page which already has me branching out into this that and the other, even unto Shev Shmatetha (Shmaitza?) to explain Sfeik Sfeika.

I found some notes from R’ Wieder’s fall 2002 shiur on Ketuvot at SwapNotes.com (the successor to YUMesorah), which cleared up something that had always bugged me about that mishnah. The first phrase: “A besulah is married up to the fourth day.” But the subsequent discussion in the Gemara treats it as “is married ON the fourth day”, so that he can run the next morning to Beis Din if he has a claim that she wasn’t a virgin, and wants the marriage annulled for false advertising.

R’ Wieder notes that ALL the Mishnah manuscripts have bayom revi’i, ON the fourth day. Only Tosefta has layom, TO the fourth day. I checked both Yerushalmis I have at home (facsimiles, of course) the Venice and Vilna editions, and both had bayom, contra the reading in the Vilna Bavli.

Bavli (Vilna)

Yerushalmi (Venice)

Although in all honesty, the Venice editio princeps of the Bavli also has layom.

Still, those woodcut initial words are lovely, aren’t they? Makes the mass-produced ornament type for the Vilna shas look cheesy. That sort of ornament is often done with movable lead type just as the words are.

Evidently, Bomberg just recycled the same blocks cut for the Bavli (1521-23) into his Yerushalmi edition of 1523.