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Jewess he has no other option – they allowed him to marry. He had
already received this ruling from prominent rabbanim. This man was
now asking the Kehillas Yaakov whether he was obligated to reveal
his condition to his bride, for two reasons: 1. If he hides it from her
there will be concern that the marriage was contacted on a false un-
derstanding. 2. Perhaps he is obligated to reveal his condition to avoid
violating the prohibition of deception and of tricking the bride, who
thinks she is marrying a man with a regular presumption of eligibility
above any question, when this is not in fact the case.

The Kehillas Yaakov rejects both of these concerns, basing himself
on the gemara (Yevamos 45a) which relates that a man came before
Rav and asked him whether the child of a slave or a gentile who had
relations with a Jewess is allowed to marry into the Jewish nation.
Rav responded that the child is kosher. “In that case,” said the man,
“let me marry your daughter” [for his own father was a gentile and his
mother was Jewish]. Rav replied, “Even were you to be as worthy as
Yehoshua Bin Nun I would not give her to you.” The man then said,
“Were I to be as worthy as Yehoshua Bin Nun and you refused me
your daughter, others would give me their daughters but seeing that
I am not like Yehoshua Bin Nun, if you don’t give me your daughter,
others will also not give me their daughters.” The gemara then relates
cases involving men with gentile fathers and Jewish mothers who
asked Rava and Rav Yehudah what to do in order to marry, since Jew-
ish girls were refusing to marry them. They advised them to move to
somewhere where they were not known and people would not know
their true identity and marry Jewish women there.

The Kehillas Yaakov wonders how it can be allowed to advise these
men to move to somewhere where they are not known and marry
Jewish women through cunning and deception. Were the women in
question to know their true identities they would refuse to marry
them and there should be concern about their contracting marriage
on an erroneous understanding and about deception!

The Kehillas Yaakov resolves this gemara with a highly novel
insight. We find in maseches Kesuvos (101b) that if a man marries a
woman and it transpires that she is forbidden to him by Torah pro-

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