RRR 178-182

A Borrowed Wedding Ring

It happens rather frequently that the groom uses a borrowed wedding ring during the marriage cere mony. Sometimes this happens simply because the best man has forgotten to bring the ring. Sometimes it happens out of sentiment—the bride wishes to use a ring that has previously been used in her family. Sometimes it happens in tradition-minded families, where there is some objection to using the ring which has been bought by the groom because it contains gems. Therefore a plain ring is borrowed and used for the ceremony and then returned. Is the use of a bor rowed ring in accordance with the spirit of Jewish legal tradition?

The Mishnah (Kidushin 1 : 1) says that a woman may be married with a penny (peruta) or the value of a penny. The Talmud, discussing the phrase, “the value of a penny,” cites various objects that the bridegroom may offer to the bride for this purpose, a date, a bundle of cotton-wool, and the answer is always, if the object has the value of a penny the marriage is valid (b. Kiddushin 13a). On an earlier page (b. Kiddushin 6b) the Talmud discusses objects which are given as a conditional gift, the condition being that the gift must be returned after a fixed time. If a man receives such a conditional gift from a friend, may he use it during the term of the gift (when the object is substantially his) to marry a woman with? While the Talmud permits the application of such a conditional present to other religious rituals, such as an esrog on Succos, it makes an exception with regard to marriage, and says that such a gift may not be used to marry a woman because women may not be married by the exchange of objects, that is, by being given an object and giving one in return. The Tosafos (ad loc.) says that this prohibition of the use of a conditional gift for marriage is only a cautionary restriction on the part of the rabbis. This statement of the Tosafos that, basically, a loan or a conditional gift could be validly used (if it were not for the cautionary prohibition of the rabbis) opens the way, as we shall see, for justifying a widespread custom in the Germanic lands of the use of a borrowed ring for weddings.

Asher ben Yehiel (thirteenth century) in his responsa (“Kelall” 35) discusses this question and asks his teachers about the use of a borrowed ring. He gives a fuller discussion of the matter in his compendium on the Talmud, Kiddushin, chapter I, section 20. He says that he has noticed the widespread custom in Germany of using a borrowed ring. Three centuries later, Moses Isserles, in his “Darke Moshe” to the Tur, Even Hoezer 28, likewise states that the use of a borrowed ring is a widespread custom. Evidently, then, the custom was well established among all the Ashkenazic Jews, both in Germany and in the eastern lands. Asher ben Yehiel (loc. cit.) goes into the question of the justification of this custom. He says that while at first it would seem that according to the Talmud (Kiddushin 6b) a marriage is not valid by the exchange of things, and since the ring will have to be returned this is like an exchange, nevertheless he justifies the custom by saying that the marriage is valid provided the groom who borrowed the ring says to the lender: “I want to use it for the purpose of marriage.” Then the lender, if he agrees of course, will determine in his mind that this should be the kind of gift or loan in which the object involved is permitted to be so used. Also, the groom should tell the bride that this is a borrowed ring, so that she will not be deceived. But how can the bride accept it when it is not a permanent gift? The answer is that the pleasure of having it for even a short time is worth to her the statutory peruta. In other words, he is not really giving her the ring; it is not his to give, although the conditions of the loan give him the right to use it for this purpose. What he is giving her is the pleasure (hana’a) of using it.

Israel Isserlein, in the fifteenth century, in his “Terumas Ha-deshen,” 2 : 10, makes reference to the opinion of Asher Ben Yehiel. The case which came before him is interesting because it gives a picture of the social life of the times. A man rented an elegant waistband to wear at a wedding dance. One of the girls among the guests wanted to borrow the fine waistband to wear during two or three dances. He said, “If you are willing to be married to me by this use of the waistband, I will lend it to you.” Isserlein, using Asher ben Yehiel’s arguments, says that if what he is giving her is the joy of the ornamentation, and if to her that is worth the peruta, the statutory penny, the marriage is valid. Asher ben Yehiel’s son, Jacob ben Asher, in his Tur (Even Hoezer 28), declares the use of the borrowed ring to be valid granting the conditions laid down by his father in his compendium on the Talmud (namely, that it be loaned for a definite time, that he tells the lender what he wants to use it for, and so forth). Moses Isserles, in his “Darke Moshe” (ad loc), doubts the full validity of such a marriage, but he accepts the fact that it has now become a widespread custom. Therefore, in the Shulchan Aruch, where Joseph Caro records this as a law, Isserles no longer repeats his doubts mentioned in the “Darke Moshe.”

Evidently this was not a well-known custom among the Sephardim (although Caro accepts it as law in his Shulchan Aruch). There is a responsum by Solomon ben Aderet, of Barcelona (number 1241 in his Responsa), but very few other references in Sephardic legal literature.

There is a recent responsum on the subject by Aaron David Burack (Pirchei Aharon, New York, 1933, p. 39 ff.). He agrees, in general, that the use of the borrowed ring is permissible, but adds a curious doubt at the end. The groom says the formula, “Behold with this ring . . . ,” and so forth. But actually he is not giving her the ring; he is giving her only the brief use of it. Hence the use of the formula is incorrect.

From our Reform point of view, we are more concerned with the spirit behind the various reasons than the actual reasons themselves. Here the whole discussion is in a field which does not have too great a weight in our religious practice. It is a discussion of the validity of a contract in the realm of civil law and monetary matters. In our Reform practice, in spite of feeling that a marriage is open to question when the ring has gems in it, since the bride may be deceived as to its value (see Reform Jewish Practice, Vol. I, pp. 91-93), we nevertheless have no hesitation in permitting the use of such a ring in marriage. Here, in the case of the borrowed ring, since the whole discussion is in the realm of conditions of loans and financial value of objects, we would nevertheless permit the use of a borrowed ring even if the law frowned on it, provided we felt that there was a strong sentiment in its favor. What does concern us in the tradition is that it became a widespread custom, at least from the twelfth century, and the majority of the rabbis and the two great Codes, the Tur and the Shulchan Aruch, declare it valid. We are, therefore, in no way violative of tradition in this case, of either its letter or its spirit, when we permit the use of a borrowed wedding ring at marriage ceremonies.