One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת יִבּוּם וַחֲלִיצָה
Levirate Marriage and Release · Chapter 6
Sefer Nashim · Which Brother • Which Widow • Where Nothing Attaches • The Household Rule
4
Categories of brothers,
then of widows
9
Years and a day: a minor
yavam acquires by yibbum
0
Obligation in a household
holding one ervah
2
Yibbum claims on one widow
force chalitzah instead
Part 1Which Brother, and Which Rite
- Four categories, set out at once. Some brothers may perform either rite, some neither (and the widows may simply marry other men), some yibbum but not chalitzah, some chalitzah but not yibbum. (6:1)
- Never fit means never obligated. A saris chamah, who never showed male development and was never potent, and an androgynos carry no obligation at all, because they are not fit to father children and never were at any time. (6:2)
- Yibbum but not chalitzah. A deaf-mute, a man who is not mentally competent, and a minor lack the competence chalitzah requires, while yibbum requires no intent. A deaf-mute who performs yibbum may never divorce her, since relations bind completely and his divorce cannot be completely effective; a yavam over nine years and one day acquires her but may not divorce until majority. (6:3)
- Chalitzah but not yibbum. Brothers whose status is in doubt, a man with crushed testicles or member or otherwise castrated, and an elderly man whose virility has weakened. A castrated yavam who performs yibbum does acquire her, since he was once potent, but must then divorce her with a get. A tumtum performs chalitzah only; if an operation reveals he is male, either rite, as he desires. (6:4)
RememberThe rite that needs a mind is closed to those who cannot understand it. The rite that needs no intent stays open, and cannot be undone.
Part 2Which Widow, and Which Rite
- The same four categories, mirrored. A deaf-mute woman, a woman who is not mentally competent and a minor may perform yibbum but not chalitzah, lacking the competence to read and understand. The yavam may still divorce the deaf-mute with a get after relations, since neither her understanding nor her consent is required for a divorce. (6:5-6)
- Prohibited to him means chalitzah only. Women forbidden by a negative commandment, by a positive commandment, or as sh'niyot perform chalitzah and not yibbum. By law yibbum should prevail, since a positive commandment overrides a negative one, but the Sages decreed otherwise, lest he have relations a second time when no mitzvah remains. If he transgresses he acquires her definitively and must divorce her with a get. (6:7, 6:10)
- Doubt about a get, not about kiddushin. Doubt whether the deceased divorced her means chalitzah and not yibbum, lest the yavam take a divorced brother's wife, who is an ervah. Doubt whether she was ever consecrated to him leaves her an ordinary yevamah, free for either rite, because no prohibition is possible either way. (6:7)
- Once fit is still fit. The wife of a deaf-mute, an elderly woman and a woman who has become barren are ordinary yevamot and may do either rite, because the elderly and the barren were once fit to bear. (6:7)
RememberA woman who has become barren is fully obligated. An aylonit, who could never bear, is outside the law entirely.
Part 3Where the Obligation Never Begins
- Four exclusions, four verses. "That his name not be obliterated" excludes the wife of a saris chamah or an androgynos, whose names are obliterated by nature; "the firstborn that she bears" excludes an aylonit; "the wife of the deceased" excludes the wife of an incompetent man or a minor, where there is no marriage at all; "he will take her as a wife" excludes an ervah. (6:8)
- How a widow is an ervah to him. She is the sister, the mother or the daughter of the yavam's own wife. She owes him nothing at all, since only a woman fit to be married, whose consecration by him would be binding, is obligated. (6:9)
- Forbidden to the husband, not to the brother. A woman the deceased was forbidden to marry as an ervah was never his wife, so she owes nothing, and his other wife carries the obligation. Where she was forbidden to him only by a commandment or as a sh'niyah and is permitted to the yavam, yibbum is allowed; the exception is a divorcee the deceased remarried after she had married another man, who gets chalitzah only. (6:12-13)
- Proven adultery versus suspicion. A wife who committed adultery before witnesses and was not yet divorced when her husband died owes neither rite, and exempts his other wives, since impurity is said of her as of the arayot. A sotah whose husband died before she drank, whose infidelity was never proven, performs chalitzah and not yibbum. (6:19)
RememberA High Priest who performs yibbum with a widow does not release the other wives: a positive commandment does not override a negative plus a positive.
Part 4The Household That Cannot Be Half Built
- One ervah closes the house. Where one of the deceased's wives is an ervah to the yavam, the other wives are exempt too, from "who did not build his brother's house": if he cannot build part of it he builds none of it, and the co-wife stays forbidden to him as his brother's wife. (6:14-15)
- And it extends outward. A woman once freed of obligation to a brother can never be obligated to him again, and she frees every other wife of her next husband, to any further extension of the principle. A brother born after the deceased died is excluded forever, since "when brothers dwell together" means at the same time. (6:15-17)
- The moment of death is what counts. If the ervah was an aylonit, or was divorced, refused the marriage by mi'un, or died in her husband's lifetime, the other wife is fully obligated, because a co-wife is disqualified only where both were married to him when the obligation took effect. But a doubt about the ervah's kiddushin or divorce leaves the other wife chalitzah only. (6:21-22)
- Two claims, no yibbum. A widow who received a ma'amar from a second brother who then died owes yibbum on two accounts, and "the wife of the deceased" is read as one deceased man and not two, so she and her co-widow get chalitzah only. Relations by a yavam aged nine and a day count as a ma'amar, with the same result. A get nullifying the ma'amar restores both rites. (6:27-30)
RememberThree brothers, two married to sisters: when the unrelated widow was bound even for one moment to a brother whose other wife was the yavam's wife's sister, chalitzah is all that remains.