TRADITIONAL AND PROGRESSIVE REMEDIES FOR IMPEDIMENTS TO MARRIAGE
any halakhic impediments to marriage stem from biblical and talmudic rulings as well as medieval codification. Notwithstanding these prohibitions,
rabbinical sages through the centuries have found halakhic ways of permitting these prima facie forbidden unions.
This paper will study approaches to this problem in various periods: rabbinic decisions found in the Talmud and the responsa literature, nineteenth-century Reform resolutions, and twentiethcentury Reform responsa.
The rabbinical decisions from the Talmud and the traditional responsa may demonstrate the use of radical techniques, including legal fiction, to remove halakhic impediments to marriage. I shall compare these decisions with attempts Progressive Judaism has made to resolve these problems.
SOLUTIONS IN TRADITIONAL RABBINIC LITERATURE
One of the earliest lenient decisions was rendered by Hillel the Elder, President of the Sanhedrin, 30 B.C.E.—10 C.E. The women of Alexandria were considered adulterous because, after their betrothal, they had been taken away by other men. The Sages of their community were about to rule that their children were mamzerim.
Hillel interpreted the mothers’ ketubot tendentiously, as if they contained a rabbinic condition that invalidated the mothers’ first betrothal. Thus, according to Hillel , the women were not married to their first husbands when taken by the fathers of their children. These women were therefore not adulterous, and their children were not