Q&A: Levirate Marriage and Halitzah
Levirate Marriage and Halitzah
Question
Hello to the honored Rabbi.
I recently learned a bit about levirate marriage and halitzah, and I was very troubled by the fact that there are women who, by Torah law (plainly speaking), perform halitzah and do not enter levirate marriage, such as cases involving prohibitions punishable by a negative commandment. And the question is that seemingly this uproots the entire concept of levirate marriage and halitzah. Because let us imagine the brother-in-law comes to the religious court and says that he wants to take her as a wife to establish a name for his brother, and then the judge tells him: but you are forbidden to do so. So he gets ready to leave, and the judge calls him back and says: wait, you need to do halitzah. And they call the woman, and she removes his shoe and spits before him and says, “So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house,” and he shouts back at her: what do you want from me? Shout at the judge.
In short, the question is even more general: how can there be differences between the spirit of the commandment and its details? (And I do not mean morality, because on that the Rabbi completely convinced me that there is no connection. Rather I mean the definition of the commandment, where there is no doubt at all that the definition of the concept of “levirate marriage and halitzah” is “to establish a name for his brother.”)
Answer
I do not understand the question. The Torah itself offers the two options: halitzah and levirate marriage. Jewish law determines when one is done and when the other is done. What exactly is the problem here? Is the problem with the wording of the halitzah formula, that instead of saying “my brother-in-law refused me” it should say “Jewish law prevented me from entering levirate marriage”? Agreed. Let it say that.
Discussion on Answer
It is still only a matter of wording. I do not know what is actually done in practice, and it is certainly plausible that they do not change the wording. On that, I do not agree with them. But the need for halitzah certainly exists, and the only issue is to state it in the correct wording.
The problem is not the wording but the definition of the concept. Just as a sin-offering is by definition meant to atone for a sin, so too halitzah is by definition the humiliation of a brother-in-law who is unwilling to establish a name for his brother. And just as there is something problematic about obligating a person who has not sinned to bring a sin-offering, there is something problematic about obligating a person who is forbidden to establish a name for his brother to undergo halitzah.
That is not correct. The commandment of halitzah is meant to permit the woman without levirate marriage. When the brother-in-law does not want to do it, they also add a kind of humiliation. But in our cases there is certainly no room whatsoever to humiliate him.
So practically speaking, you think that in cases involving prohibitions punishable by a negative commandment there is no need to spit and say “So shall it be done”?
By the way, since I already mentioned it, I would be glad to hear your view about the sin-offering of a woman who gave birth.
Correct. Not only is there no need to say it, it makes no sense at all to say it. I would forgo the spitting too. The only thing that is indispensable is the removal of the sandal.
I did not understand how we got here to the sin-offering of a woman who gave birth.
Thank you for the answer.
I had understood the definition of halitzah as humiliation, and so I brought, as an illustration of the problem I felt in cases where they “perform halitzah and do not enter levirate marriage,” the problematic nature of the sin-offering of a woman who gave birth.
Now the Rabbi has really opened my eyes, that the very act of removing the shoe is not an act of humiliation, and I agree.
Still, I would be glad if the Rabbi could address the problem of the sin-offering of a woman who gave birth, or if you would prefer that I open it as a new question. Thank you very much.
I did not understand the question about the sin-offering of a woman who gave birth. Was it mentioned above here? I did not notice.
Yes, it was mentioned.
And the problem is simple: how can you obligate a person who has not sinned at all to bring an offering whose very definition is atonement for a sin? (And here it seems to me that you would agree with me.)
It was mentioned in my first comment on your answer.
I answered that in a parallel thread, didn’t I? There is a major question how to relate to a woman in labor who cries out and makes vows—whether she is a sinner or not.
I now saw that there really is a thread about that, but there the Rabbi did not address the conceptual problem (if that is the one you mean: https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%d7%97%d7%98%d7%90%d7%aa-%d7%99%d7%95%d7%9C%d7%93%d7%AA/).
And besides, even if we assume that a woman always cries out and makes vows, it is still very strange to say that she would need atonement for such a thing.
I showed there that a woman who gives birth is not a sinner, and from this it follows that the sin-offering brought there is not brought for a sin. There are offerings such as a guilt-offering that are not brought for a sin but for purification, and the same is true of the sin-offerings of a man with a discharge, a woman with a discharge, a woman who gave birth, and a metzora (those lacking atonement).
I have no problem at all with her doing halitzah. The problem is that the very definition of the halitzah process is humiliation for not agreeing to establish a name for his brother. And again, I do not mean my own speculation about the reason for the commandment; rather, this is clear from the process of halitzah itself, from the spitting and the statement “So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house.” A parallel example would be the problematic nature of obligating a woman who gave birth to bring a sin-offering.