Yevamot 106b (קו:) — the Talmud in English

Mishna:

The mitzva of chalitza

is performed as follows:

He comes,

the yavam,

together with his yevama to the court. And

if he is young and she is elderly, or he is elderly and she is young,

they give him appropriate counsel.

They say to him: Go to a woman like yourself, who is suitable for you, and do not bring strife into your home.

This matter is derived from what

is stated: “And the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him.”

The counsel that they give him is precisely the speech that the elders address to him.

And she says: “My yavam refuses

to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he does not desire to perform yibbum with me.”

And he says: “I did not desire to take her.”

And they would recite

these words in the holy tongue.

And afterward:

“And his yevama shall approach him before the eyes of the elders, remove his shoe from his foot, and spit before him,” a spittle visible to the judges.

And afterward:

“And she shall respond and say: So shall be done to the man who will not build his brother’s house.”

Until this point they would have the verses recited.

That is, until this verse they would tell the yavam and the yevama to recite, as stated above.

And when Rabbi Horkanos recited the passage beneath the terebinth in Kefar Eitam,

when a yevama came before him,

and he completed

having the passage recited,

the entire passage,

meaning that he also had them recite, “And his name shall be called in Israel, The House of the Removed Shoe,”

they became accustomed

to completing the entire passage.

“And his name shall be called in Israel, The House of the Removed Shoe,”

it is a mitzva incumbent upon the judges

to recite, “The Removed Shoe,”

but it is not a mitzva incumbent upon the students

who sit there before their teacher to study. They are not required to recite it.

Rabbi Yehuda says: It is a mitzva for all those standing there to say, “The Removed Shoe” .

This is the wording of Maimonides [Laws of Levirate Marriage and Chalitza, chapter 4, halakha 8]: “And all those sitting there answer after her, ‘The shoe of the one whose shoe was removed,’ three times.” And the Shulchan Arukh wrote [Even HaEzer 169:42]: “And some say that the yevama should also say this.”

Gemara:

Rav Yehuda said:

The order of

the mitzva of chalitza

is as follows:

She recites

the yevama: “My yavam refuses,” and so on.

And he recites

the yavam: “I did not desire to take her.”

And she removes the shoe and spits,

and

finally

she recites

the yevama: “So shall be done to the man,” and so on.

And we question this:

What is he teaching us

Rav Yehuda? This is

our Mishna

itself,

is it not!

For the entire order of the actions that Rav Yehuda stated is written in our Mishna!

And we explain:

This is what he teaches us

Rav Yehuda: that it is only

a mitzva

to perform the procedure

in this manner. But if he reverses

the order,

it is not consequential.

A beraita also teaches likewise: Whether she performed the removal of the shoe before the spitting, or she performed the spitting before the removal of the shoe, what he did is valid.

Abaye said: One who dictates to a woman

Abaye said: One who dictates to the woman

the deed of chalitza [

the text of the chalitza] while she performs chalitza, so that she will know what to say,

should not dictate to her [

he should not have her recite]

“not” by itself [

separately],

and “he desires to perform yibbum with me” by itself.

Because

if

she says it in that manner,

it implies: “He desires to perform yibbum with me”!

Rather,

he should have her recite these words together:

“He does not desire to perform yibbum with me.”

And

likewise

he should not dictate to him,

the yavam, the word

“not” by itself,

and the word

“desire” by itself, because

then it would

imply: “I desired to take her”!

Rather,

he should have him recite it together:

“I did not desire to take her.”

Rava said: Separating the words

is merely a matter of

separating words, and separating words is not consequential.

Rav Ashi found Rav Kahana struggling [

exerting himself]

to have her recite

together

“He does not desire to perform yibbum with me.”

He said to him

Rav Ashi: Why,

does the Master not accept Rava’s ruling,

who said that it is not consequential?

He said to him: Rava concedes with regard to “He does not desire to perform yibbum with me”

that she must not interrupt. For if she interrupts, it implies that the “not” she says applies to the beginning of her statement, in which she said, “My yavam refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel,” and she concludes by saying, “not.” That is, she does not refuse to perform yibbum with him; rather, he desires to perform yibbum with her.

This is not so with regard to “I did not desire to take her,” which is the beginning of the yavam’s statement. It is not possible to say that the “not” applies to the beginning of his speech, and therefore it does not matter to us if he interrupts.

Abaye said: One who writes a deed of chalitza [

a document attesting to the chalitza],

should write as follows:

“We had her recite” [

we had the yevama recite]

from “My yavam refuses” through “he desires to perform yibbum with me”; and we had him recite [

we had the yavam recite]

from “not” through “to take her,” and

again

we had her recite from “So shall be done” through “the removed shoe.”

The reason is that the deed of chalitza is not ruled, and one may not write four words from a verse without ruling.

However,

Mar Zutra

would

rule

the deed of chalitza,

and

he would

write the entire passage.

That is: We had her recite, “My yavam refuses to establish a name,” and so on.

Mar bar Idi challenged this: But it is not permitted to write

a passage as a separate unit! For so we learned in tractate Gittin [60a]: One may not write a scroll for a child to study from!

And we conclude:

And the halakha is in accordance with Mar Zutra,

that one may write the verses of the chalitza.

This is not comparable to writing a scroll for a child to study from. In that case, his intention is to write a passage so that it will be like a small scroll. And we have an established principle there: The Torah was given as a complete, sealed book, and not as separate scrolls. But a deed of chalitza is merely a record of events; it does not retain its sanctity, and for the sake of a mitzva it is permitted.

Abaye said:

If

the yevama spat

the yevama,

and the wind caught it

and carried it away from before the yavam,

she has accomplished nothing.

What is the reason?

Because

we require “and she shall spit before him,”

and the spittle was not before him.

Therefore,

if

he,

the yavam,

is tall and she is short,

and

the wind catches it [

the spittle],

there is “and she shall spit

before him.”

For as soon as it left her mouth, it was before him.

However, if

she was

tall and he was short, we require that it reach

the spittle

opposite his face [

facing his face],

and afterward it may proceed

by means of the wind.

Rava said: If she ate garlic [

garlic cloves]

and spat [

and expectorated], or if she

ate earth [

a type of soil]

and spat, she has accomplished nothing.

What is the reason?

Because

we require “and she shall spit” of her own accord, and that is not the case.

For her spitting resulted from eating the garlic or the earth.

And Rava said: The judges must see the spittle as it emerges from the yevama’s mouth. For it is written: “Before the eyes of the elders, and she shall spit.”

We learned in our Mishna:

“And his name shall be called in Israel, The House of the Removed Shoe”—it is a mitzva incumbent upon the judges, but not upon the students.

It was taught in a beraita: Rabbi Yehuda said: Once we were sitting before Rabbi Tarfon, and a yevama came to perform chalitza, and he said to us: Answer all of you

and say:

“The Removed Shoe, the Removed Shoe, the Removed Shoe,”

three times.

We have completed [the study of] the chapter “The Mitzva of Chalitza.”

The chapter before us deals with the subject of

mi'un.

1. By Torah law, a minor girl can be betrothed only by her father, and she leaves her husband through a get, even while she is still a minor, provided that her father receives her get.

Once she has come of age, however, she is divorced through her receiving the get herself.

The Sages instituted that the minor girl's mother or brothers may betroth her and marry her off while she is a minor. Likewise, if a minor girl betroths herself, her betrothal is effective by rabbinic law.

They also instituted that the minor girl may perform mi'un with her husband and leave him without a get.

There are several ways in which a minor girl performs mi'un, some of which will be explained in this Mishna.

Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed concerning several of these laws: whether she may perform mi'un even after her marriage or only during her betrothal; whether she may perform mi'un with a yavam or only with her husband while he is alive; whether mi'un must take place in the husband's presence; and whether it must be performed before a court.

2. The Gemara below will explain whether mi'un is directed against the husband, meaning that she does not wish to remain his wife, or whether it is directed against the betrothal performed for her by her mother or brothers.

3. The Gemara will likewise discuss whether she can reject her bond to one yavam while leaving her bond to other yevamin intact, or whether mi'un with one yavam uproots all the betrothal.

4.

The nature of mi'un —

According to Rashi, it is a declaration that she is a minor and that her actions have no effect. Therefore, if she leaves one husband through a get, then marries a second husband and performs mi'un with him, her mi'un with the second husband reveals that her actions were “the actions of a minor,” which have no effect,

and the betrothal of her first husband is also retroactively uprooted [

except that in certain circumstances the Sages imposed a decree concerning a “woman who received a get,” as will be explained below].

5.

Uprooting the marriage through mi'un —

is retroactive,

as though she had never been betrothed at all. Once she performs mi'un, she is not forbidden to his relatives, and he is not forbidden to her relatives. [

See the note, which explains that the uprooting is “retroactive from this point forward,” and not genuinely retroactive].