One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת יִבּוּם וַחֲלִיצָה
Levirate Marriage and Release · Chapter 1
Sefer Nashim · A new treatise opens • Who is bound, who counts as a brother, and what the yavam may not do
30
Days a newborn must live
when the term is unknown
90
Days before either rite
may be performed
1
House he may build,
and never two
0
Brotherhood among
converts, even twins
Part 1Bound, and What Releases Her
- Two commandments, and her consent. A man whose paternal brother died childless marries the widow, and no kiddushin is needed, since she is the wife heaven acquired for him; her marriage contract is paid by the first husband's estate. If he does not want her, or she does not consent, he performs chalitzah. Both rites are positive commandments of the Torah, and the Rambam rules that yibbum takes precedence. (1:1-2)
- Childless is read as widely as possible. A son, a daughter, a child of a son, a child of a daughter, from this wife or any other woman, frees her from both rites. So does a surviving descendant who is illegitimate, and so does one who worships idols. The law asks whether a life exists, not what it became. (1:3)
- Lineage is the one boundary. A child born to him from a maidservant or a non-Jewish woman does not free her, since her offspring follow her status, and freeing the son or his conversion afterward changes nothing. A man may have freed that son and married his mother and still leave his widow bound. (1:4)
- One breath in the open air. She miscarries after his death and she is bound; the child emerges alive and she is free even if it dies at once. Where the pregnancy is not known to have run nine full months, the child must live thirty days, and if it dies inside them, even on the thirtieth, she performs chalitzah and may not perform yibbum. (1:5)
RememberA descendant who abandoned everything his father stood for still perpetuates his father's house well enough to release the widow from an obligation of the Torah.
Part 2Who Counts as a Brother
- His head emerged before the death. Any brother obligates her once his head and the greater part of his body emerged into the world before his brother died, even a minor, even one who is illegitimate, even one who serves idols, though she should seek release from that one rather than marry him. A brother born after the death never enters the obligation. (1:6)
- Fraternity comes from the father alone. Maternal brothers are brothers for exactly two things, mourning and testimony. For inheritance, for yibbum and for chalitzah they are treated as though they do not exist, learned from the brothers who called themselves twelve brothers, the sons of one man. (1:7)
- No brother through a maidservant or a gentile mother. Such a son is not his brother in any halachic sense, and it makes no difference that the mother was freed or converted before the birth, since what counts is her status at conception. (1:6)
- Converts have no fraternity. Two sons of one father who converted are legally unrelated for this law, even twins, unless they were both conceived and born after the conversion. (1:8)
RememberThe brother who sat on the floor beside her for the same seven days may be no brother at all here, while a paternal half brother she has met twice holds her future.
Part 3The Limits on the Yavam, and the Unborn
- One house, not two. Where his brother left several wives, one yibbum or one chalitzah with any of them frees the rest, and he may not take two, from "who did not build his brother's house." Afterwards the remaining widows are forbidden to him and to all the brothers, by positive commandment after yibbum and by rabbinic decree after chalitzah. (1:9, 1:12)
- Do not narrow a woman's future for nothing. If some widows may still marry into the priesthood and some may not, chalitzah must be performed with one already disqualified, since a chalutzah may not marry a priest. A court enforces this. After chalitzah her status is like that of a divorced wife, and her close relatives become forbidden to him. (1:10, 1:13)
- Ninety days, and the equivalence of the rites. No yibbum and no chalitzah within ninety days of the husband's death, excluding the day of death and the day of the rite. Chalitzah is barred in those days not because of paternity but because the Torah set the two rites equal: unfit for the one, unfit for the other. (1:19)
- A rite performed over a pregnancy is no rite. Chalitzah with a pregnant woman is void and relations with her are not yibbum, since the child removes nothing until it emerges. Bear a viable child and the chalitzah is as though it never happened, and she may marry into the priesthood; miscarry, or lose the child inside thirty days, and it must be done again. (1:20)
RememberOnce he has married his yevamah he may divorce her and remarry her like any wife: no trace of the prohibition remains, neither from Scriptural law nor from rabbinic law.