One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת יִבּוּם וַחֲלִיצָה
Levirate Marriage and Release · Chapter 7
Sefer Nashim · When the Mitzvah Meets a Prohibition • The Moment She Falls • Half Bonds • Releases That Do Less
1
Instant that fixes
the obligation, for good
0
Obligations carried
by an ervah
2
Dissolutions one
ma'amar requires
4
Brothers, four clean
exits in 7:2
Part 1The Collision: Yibbum Against Ervah
- Two sisters, both bound, so neither may be married. Where two brothers were married to two sisters and both died without it being known who died first, the surviving brother performs chalitzah with both and yibbum with neither, since marrying two sisters is forbidden and each is bound to him. (7:1)
- A lesser prohibition still leaves her bound. A widow forbidden to him as a sh'niyah, or by a positive or a negative commandment, still carries the Scriptural obligation of yibbum, so she counts and both women are barred from yibbum. (7:1)
- An ervah carries nothing at all. If one of them is forbidden to him as an ervah, his wife's mother or his wife's daughter, she was never obligated, only one woman fell before him, and he may choose yibbum or chalitzah with her sister. (7:1-2)
- "Two sisters" is a shorthand. Read it as any two women where marrying one makes the other forbidden: a woman and her daughter, her granddaughter, and the like; and read "sister of his wife" as her mother or her daughter too. (7:22)
RememberA severe prohibition does not compete with the mitzvah. It cancels the bond outright, which is why an ervah needs no ceremony and simply goes free.
Part 2Fixed at the Moment She Falls
- Fit then, or never. Where both widows are sisters and one of them dies, the first brother's widow becomes permitted again for yibbum or chalitzah, while the second brother's widow stays in chalitzah only, because she was not fit for yibbum at the time she came before her yavam. (7:3-4)
- Forbidden then means forbidden forever. Two brothers married to two sisters, one dies childless, and afterward the surviving brother's wife dies: his sister in law remains forbidden to him permanently, since she was forbidden at the moment the obligation took effect. (7:12)
- Removing the cause can free her to the others. If a brother performs chalitzah with the second widow, or performs yibbum with a widow permitted to him, the first widow becomes permitted again to the remaining brothers, because what forbade her has been removed. (7:4-5)
- Acting without a ruling costs both couples. Where the brothers went ahead and each married one of the sisters, both are forced to separate, including the second, whose marriage was made possible only by the first brother's forbidden act. (7:5)
RememberThe chapter asks one question once: at the instant she fell before him, was she fit? Nothing later reaches back to change the answer.
Part 3Half Bonds: a Word, a Wait, a Refusal
- A ma'amar binds without marrying. A yavam who gave a ma'amar and then had her sister fall before him must give that woman a get and also perform chalitzah with her: two dissolutions, because the ma'amar was real enough to undo and not real enough to count. (7:6)
- And it frees nobody else. Since a ma'amar does not fully acquire a woman, the deceased's other wife is not released by it and must still perform chalitzah. (7:7)
- Told to wait. A brother who consecrated the sister of his yevamah is instructed not to divorce her and not to marry her until another brother performs yibbum or chalitzah. If no brother remains, he gives her a get and performs chalitzah; if she dies, his yevamah becomes permitted to him. (7:8)
- A rabbinic marriage yields to a Scriptural one. Where the younger of two sisters is married only by rabbinic authority, the court instructs her to dissolve that marriage by mi'un, her refusal, so the older sister's yibbum can go forward. (7:15)
RememberThe law is content to leave a man suspended, holding the question open, because the prohibition may yet lift.
Part 4Releases That Do Less, and Cases With No Exit
- Chalitzah has grades. A chalitzah performed where yibbum was never possible is not "superior," so it does not release the deceased's other wife, who must perform her own; release the other wife and the sisters go free with her. (7:9)
- The Rambam's own extension. With the words "it appears to me," a phrase he uses where the earlier literature has no ruling, he applies the same downgrading to a widow forbidden as a sh'niyah or by a positive or negative commandment. (7:10)
- A binding divorce with a rabbinic remarriage strands her. A girl married off by her father, divorced and remarried while still a minor, or a woman divorced while competent who then could neither hear nor speak, has neither yibbum nor chalitzah; but if she matured or regained her faculties within that marriage, she is permitted. (7:13-14)
- The decree made for appearances. Where a brother who can neither hear nor speak must divorce his wife because her sister is now bound to him, the widow is left unable to remarry at all, since he may not marry the sister of his divorcee and cannot perform chalitzah. The Sages required it so that onlookers would not conclude she had been freed as the sister of the yavam's wife. (7:17-18)
RememberWhere the marriage of an ervah either counts or does not, both answers free her co-wife, so both women go out with no ceremony at all.