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HALAKHAH AND ULTERIOR MOTIVES
law of yefat to’ar(Deut. 21:10-17 and Qiddushin 21b), where a ritual prohibition is relaxed in a situation where it is likely to be violated, apply in this case? In his brief and to-the-point response,”® Rambam agrees that the law of the Torah requires a separation. The permit of the yefat to’ar is understood as a concession to human weakness, a step the law takes unwillingly; on the contrary, the bet din must employ every means at its disposal to force the man to expel the maidservant"or to free her and marry her". Rabbinic law, moreover, adds another stringency: A man suspected of a sexual liason with a maidservant or a Gentile woman is forbidden to marry her upon her conversion, although the marriage is valid should it take place. This is the existing law, the explicit rule of the Mishnah codified by Maimonides himself.* Yet in actual practice he sets aside the prohibition and allows the conversion and marriage.
"When I have ruled in matters such as this that he expel her [i.e., liberate her] and marry her, I have done so as a means of encouraging sinners to repent[mipnei taganat hashavim], saying‘it is better that they eat the sauce and not the forbidden fat’, relying upon the rabbinic principle that‘when it is time to act for the Lord, we must annul the Torah if necessary(M. Berakhot 9:5, after Psalms 119:126). He is therefore permitted to marry her. May God in His mercy grant atonement for our sins, as He promised us: T will purge all your impurities’[Isaiah 1:25].
Rambam , in other words, deviates from the established law in two respects: he allows a conversion which is clearly not undertaken leshem shamayim,®*® and he permits the newlyconverted maidservant to marry a man to whom she is expressly, if only lekhat-hilah, forbidden. Recognizing this deviation, he seeks to justify it, but his arguments, from a legal standpoint, are curiously weak. It is true, for example, that by waiving the"lesser" rabbinic decree against the conversion and marriage of this woman
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