A child suggested marriage to a girlfriend on escalators in a mall in Paris • Years later, she approached the rabbinical court on the question - is she considered married?
Illustrative image // Photo: I STOK
A group of Jewish children strolled for pleasure at a shopping mall in Paris, when he suddenly pulled one of the children on the escalator and gave it to the girl. He asked her if she wanted to marry him, and she replied with a positive laugh. The years passed, the same children lived and so the strange issue came to the Ashdod Regional Court.
The girl, now a 24-year-old resident of Ashdod, recently approached the rabbinical court with a terribly serious question - whether she is considered married or is she allowed to marry her heart. The three Dayanim, Rabbi David Lebanon, Rabbi Moshe Amsalem and Rabbi Yitzchak Levy, conducted an in-depth interview with the same girl, who described in great detail, as far as her memory goes, the situation, the background and the present.
They also managed to locate the boy who proposed marriage, but in a phone call from Paris he replied that he did not remember the incident at all. The years have passed, and since it was probably a minor event for him, it blossomed from his memory. It turns out that the event also had only one witness - a Jewish religious boy.
In the end, the Dayanim wrote a long and comprehensive judgment that covers the topic of "married marriage" in Halachic history and is based on dozens of sources, most notably the rulings of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Shalom Mashash.
The litigants checked and found that there was no real intention for marriage, neither on the part of the child nor on the part of the girl. Also, a canopy was not provided and the mall stairs are not a suitable place for true marriage. In addition, the gift of the ring preceded the marriage proposal and not the other way around - when you first say, "You are consecrated to me in this ring as the religion of Moses and Israel" and then to wear the ring on the bride's finger.
Therefore, in the end, the Dayanim determined that "the applicant is allowed to marry the religion of Moses and Israel to anyone who wishes." At the same time, the Deans sent warning boys and girls to avoid unnecessary marriage games.
