Slightly macabre hypothetical situation

sequoia

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 1:57 am

This is a question about chalitzah.

Suppose a young husband, without children, is ill *and* his mother is pregnant with a boy. (No other brothers). Would his wife be hoping that if he’s going to die, he dies before the baby is born so she’s not chained for the next 13 years (at least)?

WhatFor

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 2:21 am

Does it makes a difference if when he dies the baby isn't born yet?

By the way, I was always fascinated by the Shlomo Hamelech "cut the baby in half" story since I learned that it was actually a yibum issue.

Here's one place I found online that discusses it.

https://dafyomi.co.il/yevamos/.....5.htm

Queen Of Hearts

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 2:40 am

WhatFor wrote:

Sounds fascinating. Can you please expound on that?

ETA just see it's in the link you posted.

Last edited by Queen Of Hearts on Fri, Jan 26 2024, 2:42 am; edited 1 time in total

happyone

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 2:40 am

WhatFor wrote:

This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

Reality

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 4:47 am

WhatFor wrote:

That was really fascinating! Thank you for posting!

My question is, why would the mil need to do yibum if both her husband and only adult son died childless? Her husband did have a child who lived to adulthood.

teachkids

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 5:50 am

Reality wrote:

Depends who died first. If the child dies first then the husband is considered to have died childless and she needs to. It gets complicated if the husband and child die in an accident together and they need to try to figure out who died first. If she's pregnant when the husband dies then they wait to see if the baby lives- if it does, no yibbum needed.

DrMom

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 7:09 am

teachkids wrote:

As I understood sequoia question, the soon-to-be-widow's MIL is pregnant with a son, and if he is born before her DH dies, her DH will then have a brother, so she (the widow) will either have to wait 13 years until he is of legal age so they can either marry, or he performs chalitzah, in which case she is free to marry someone else.

teachkids

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 7:41 am

DrMom wrote:

I think she was asking why she would need yibum if the son lived to adulthood and possibly had a son (depending if he's alive or not), and the answer is if there isn't a son alive/ soon to be born at the time the father dies then it doesn't count as him having children.

esuss

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 8:16 am

The way I understand it is: Yibum has to be performed if a man dies childless - the new widow has to either marry the man's brother or perform chalitzah. In this case the man has no children and currently no brother if he dies before his mother's baby is born then she is free from this requirement to get remarried but if he dies after the MILs baby boy is born then he has a brother and they have to do chalitzah before she can remarry. The new baby won't be able to do chalitzah till the age of Hallachic adulthood at the age of 13.

This is my simple understanding of the issue. It is very interesting and unusual. For sure the biggest Rabbonim in the world should be approached for a ruling on this one.

Reality

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 8:22 am

teachkids wrote:

I never knew that.

It means post Holocaust on top of all the agunah issues, there must have been a lot of chalitzah needed as well. I've never heard anyone talk about it. Although now that I'm thinking about it, male relatives may not have survived either.

happy7

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 8:49 am

The short answer is that if there is a male child under BM, the almanah has to wait until he reaches BM. This happened to a young woman I know (she waited about 6 years for chalitzah and recently remarried).I don’t know if there is a pre-death process that can happen. In the days of old, the husbands would give a stipulatory geht when they went out to war so their wives would not remain agunahas or need yibum. Perhaps today if a man knows he is dying, he can put something in place while his mind is still working.

The question is: If the child hasn’t been born at the time of the death, is she required to wait?

I am curious and I will find out.

Last edited by happy7 on Fri, Jan 26 2024, 9:03 am; edited 2 times in total

Ihatepotatoes

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 8:53 am

happy7 wrote:

The short answer is that if there is a make child under BM, the almanah has to wait until he reaches BM. This happened to a young woman I know (she waited about 6 years for chalitzah and recently remarried).I don’t know if there is a pre-death process that can.l happen. In the days of old, the husbands would give a stipulatory geht when they went out to eat so their wives would not remain agunahas or need yibum. Perhaps today if a man knows he is dying, he can put something in place while his mind is still working.

I know you meant war but this is unintentionally hilarious.

"Honey, I'm going to Ess-in-fress, that new deli. I don't think I'm going to make it"

iyar

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 10:06 am

Ihatepotatoes wrote:

I know you meant war but this is unintentionally hilarious.

"Honey, I'm going to Ess-in-fress, that new deli. I don't think I'm going to make it"

😂

peace2

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 10:16 am

happy7 wrote:

No. Rashi says explicitly that yibbum and chalitzah only apply to two brothers who inhabited the world at the same time, so if the younger one wasn't born before the husband died, there's no requirement of chalitzah.
Also, I was under the impression that a 9 year old could do chalitzah, but maybe I'm misremembering

peace2

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 10:18 am

teachkids wrote:

I don't think this was the question, but to your point, if a man dies and his wife is pregnant, as long as the child lives past 30 days she doesn't need yibbum.

honeymoon

Fri, Jan 26 2024, 10:32 am

WhatFor wrote:

Thank you for posting this. This is fascinating! You learn something new every day..

WhatFor

Wed, Jan 31 2024, 3:33 am

Reality wrote:

Along those lines, my question on that story was:
1. Why would the mil be too concerned about yibum anyway? Since her dh was old enough to have a grandchild, what are the odds that he had only one brother, and that the brother was younger than 13?
2. From my reading, did a lot of people back then choose yibum over chalitzah? Because continuing from question 1, couldn't she always do chalitzah? I get the dil's motive of not wanting to wait 13 years, but what could the mil's concern be even if it wasn't her baby?

But maybe that was the point. What Shlomo Hamelech was getting at was that she really had no motive to harm the baby one way or the other.

I guess I just don't fully get it the way the story was written up because it presented them as both potentially having a motive, and I don't get that.

penguin

Sat, Feb 10 2024, 11:48 pm

Just seeing this a couple weeks later. I believe there are teshuvos about whether husb can give a get, maybe even in Shabbos, so his wife won't need chalitza. Imagine a brother stuck somewhere inaccessible or not interested... (they were very pragmatic in olden days & not worried about offending husb by suggesting he five a get)