By Dovid Zaklikowski for COLlive and Hasidic Archives
The letter from Brazil changed everything. In the 1960s, a religious Jewish woman in New York received a letter from the brother of her late husband. She was shocked. The brothers had lost touch during the war, and her husband had concluded that his sibling had perished. He himself had passed away a decade earlier without leaving any offspring. She had subsequently remarried.
Now, she realized that her second marriage was invalid. According to Jewish law, a childless widow is required to marry her husband’s brother. The law, known as levirate marriage, is so important that one who does not fulfill it and marries another is considered to be committing adultery. Since her brother-in-law had not been heard from in years, he was presumed dead. With witnesses attesting to his disappearance, a rabbinical court had permitted her to remarry.
It turned out, however, that her brother-in-law was alive and well, living in South America. He had located his brother’s address in New York, and not realizing that he had passed away, written a letter to him. The woman wondered what she should do. Could she remain married to her current husband?
There is only one way to nullify the requirement of levirate marriage: a ceremony known as chalitzah, in which the widow publicly chastises her brother-in-law by removing his shoe and spitting at him. Usually, chalitzah is performed before the widow remarries. In this case, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the foremost expert on Jewish law in the United States, ruled that the woman should divorce her second husband, perform chalitzah, and then remarry again.
Though he was not observant, the woman’s brother-in-law agreed to come to the United States to participate in the ceremony. Rabbi Feinstein officiated, and took great pains to make him comfortable. He himself washed the man’s foot to make sure that there was no separation between it and the special shoe. He asked him several times if he was okay and understood what was happening.
In consideration for the man’s feelings, Rabbi Feinstein announced that only people who needed to learn how chalitzah is done would be permitted to watch. Three young students stayed as a part of the rabbinical court.
Afterwards, a document was drawn up as evidence that the ceremony had been performed. It required the signatures of two witnesses. Realizing that if he asked two of the three students to sign, the third would feel slighted, Rabbi Feinstein called all three to sign. Thus all parties left the ceremony with their dignity intact.
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The widow spits on the floor in front of her brother in law, not “at” him.
It seems that there were no children yet in the second marriage?
1. Remarriage without chalitzah is *not* considered adultery. If done deliberately it is merely an ordinary sin like any other; if done inadvertently there is no sin in the first place. 2. The second marriage’s validity was never in any doubt. Any children from the second marriage, even before the chalitza, would be kosher. 3. The widow spits *in front of* the brother-in-law, not *at* him. 4. While a chalitza that was done before only three judges is kosher, there are supposed to be five judges and at least five witnesses, to make a minyan. 5. It’s strange that R… Read more »
Although, there is a prohibition, It’s not considered “adultery” and does not make the second marriage “invalid”.