Q:
How could Yankev kiss Rachel before they were married?
A:
And the answer is Yankev was an old man and Rochel was a little girl. And the proof that he kissed her only as a relative, is because he wept. When a boy kisses a girl he doesn’t weep. But it says ‘he raised up his voice and he wept’. So it was a kosher kiss.
Of course we don’t do that either. In the olden days, however, they could trust themselves that much. When an old man met a young little cousin of his, he gave her a kiss. We don’t do that today anymore.
In the time of the Gemara, there was an old chochom, he took a little kallah—a little kallah who was ten years old—he took her on his shoulder and he was dancing with the kallah on his shoulder.
The talmidim said, “Should we do the same?”
He says, “If a kallah to you is like a keg of beer, then you can do it. But otherwise don’t do it.”
So even a little girl, we don’t do today. But in those days, especially with a very old man and a very little girl, it was kosher v’yosher.
(January 1990)
