[ ]Mapping the Familyviduals outside of that lineage, including maternal kin and the kin of his
or her spouse as “family.”
Constructing the Rabbinic Family
In t h is sect ion, we w i l l a na ly ze a ser ies of ta l mud ic pa ssages t hat d iscuss
various legal issues involving the rights and responsibilities of family
members. These passages discuss the laws of mourning, testimony, in-
her ita nce, a nd lev i rate. T h roug h t hese d iscussions, a f u l ler pict u re of t he
rabbinic family — that is, the family as the rabbis imagined it — emerges.
It w i l l become clea r t hat a fa m i ly may be const r ucted i n a va r iet y of ways
and that these constructions are not contradictory but complementary.
An individual may understand family more narrowly in some situations
and more broadly in others. He may have a family obligation to another
person in some cases but not others.
The laws of mourning as constr ucted in t he Babylonia n Ta lmud of fer
the narrowest definition of family:
a. Our rabbis taught: Anyone mentioned in the passage about
the priests, for whom a priest must defile himself, a mourner
mourns for them. They are: his wife, his father and his mother,
his brother and his sister, his son and his daughter. They added
to them: his brother and his virgin sister by his mother [but
who have a different father], and his married sister by either his
father or his mother.
b. Just as one mourns for [these relatives], one mourns for those
who are second to them {i.e. their parents or children} — these
are the words of R. Akiba. R. Simeon ben Eleazar says: He only
mourns for his son’s son and his father’s father. And the sages
say: Anyone for whom he mourns, he mourns with that
person.
c. The sages’ view is identical to that of the first tanna {i.e. Rabbi
Akiba]!
d. The difference between them arises when he is with him in the
house. {The sages require a person to mourn the relatives of those
close to him only when he is with the primary mourner, while
R. Akiba imposes mourning on him even when the primary
mourner is not present.}