Q&A: Levirate Marriage
Levirate Marriage
Question
Honorable great genius and distinguished doctor, greetings and blessings,
I would like to ask for your help regarding a verse that requires a rational explanation.
I was asked about Genesis 38:9.
Nachmanides explains the verse in terms of reincarnation of souls, and that makes the verse clearer and more understandable than the explanations of Saadia Gaon and Rashi.
Is there any commentator or interpretation that allows the verse to be understood in a rational and satisfactory way?
And this is the questioner’s wording:
What does it mean that he “shall be called by the name of his dead brother”? In Israel? What Torah was there then?
And also in the levirate marriage involving Mahlon and Chilion we see the idea of reincarnation.
This is written regarding levirate marriage… the Torah had not yet been given then…
And in practice there is no obligation at all to physically give the baby the name of the deceased.
It says there, “And Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; and when he came to his brother’s wife, he wasted it on the ground, so as not to provide offspring for his brother”—what does this mean??
Thank you for your help.
Answer
You can spare the pompous titles (unless they were meant sarcastically, which is always welcome. The problem is that on the internet it’s hard to tell sarcastic statements from serious ones. It’s only the difference of a single letter in Hebrew, and there’s no body language to help with that).
Third, your question/questions are phrased carelessly, and it’s not clear what you’re asking.
1. There is no Nachmanides on verse 9, only on verse 8.
2. His words there do not mention reincarnations.
3. I do not see any necessity whatsoever—plain-sense or otherwise—to read reincarnations into the verse or the passage there.
4. Therefore your main question is not clear to me.
5. In the course of your remarks you insert all kinds of other questions that are unrelated, as if they were a continuation of the same line of thought.
6. The questions are unclear in themselves, not only in their context.
So if you want to discuss something, please formulate your question clearly and refocus it, and submit it through the responsa system on the site.
All the best,