A.
This week’s parasha discusses the mitzva of yibbum: כי ישבו אחים יחדו ומת אחד מהם ובן אין לו לא תהי' אשת המת החוצה לאיש זר יבמה יבא עלי' ולקחה לאשה ויבמה: והי' הבכור אשר תלד יקום על שם אחיו המת ולא ימחה שמו מישראל: (“For brothers will dwell together, and one of them will die and will have no son; the wife of the deceased should not become the wife of a strange man outside; her yavam will come upon her and take her to wife and be m’yabbém her. And it will be the bechor [“first-born”], whom she will bear will rise up on the name of his dead brother, and his name will not be erased from Israel”; XXV, 5-6).
The Talmud asserts: "והי' הבכור" -- מיכן שמצוה בגדול לייבם כו' השתא דאמרת קרא בגדול כתיב, אימא בכור לייבם, םשוט לא לייבם (“‘And it will be the bechor....’ -- From here [we learn] that it a mitzva for an older brother [gadol] to perform yibbum.... Now that you have said [that] the verse is written concerning a gadol, I shall say that a bechor is to perform yibbum, an ordinary brother [pashut] is not to perform yibbum”), and Rashi ad loc. adds: לגמרי בין איכא בכור בין ליכא בכור (“altogether, whether or not there is a bechor”; יבמות כ"ד.).
The hava amina or underlying presumption of the gmara thus seems to be that yibbum is the exclusive province of the bechor, such that only he can be a yavam (at least mid’Oraitha, or Biblically). This, it seems to me, calls for some elucidation.
B.
The great 20th century Polish scholar Rabbi Me’ir Dan Plocki, in his Torah commentary Kli Chemda, calls our attention to a discussion elsewhere in the Talmud (קידושין י"ט.).
The Torah defines a no’éf, an “adulterer” as one who seduces an ésheth ish (“a man’s wife”; cf. Leviticus XX, 10). The gmara suggests that the word ish (“man”) excludes from such a judgment a man who seduces the “wife” of a qatan, a minor. The reason for this is that, in order to contract normal marriage (qiddushin), one must be a bar da‘ath, capable of comprehending in full the responsibilities which he is assuming. Since a qatan is by definition not a bar da‘ath, he cannot contract a marriage, and his “wife” is therefore not an ésheth ish.
However, continues the gmara, this applies only to normal qiddushin. If the qatan has performed yibbum, the situation is different. As is implied by the language of our opening passage, yibbum is dependent upon bi’a, “intercourse,” not da‘ath, and the bi’a of a qatan aged a nine years and a day is considered valid and effective. Thus, such a qatan would be able to acquire his yevama as a wife.
So, asked Rabbi Plocki, how in the world can our original gmara assert that yibbum is the exclusive province of the bechor? If a pashut, an ordinary brother, cannot be a yavam when would it ever happen that a qatan would be?
The key lies in the fact that our two brothers must share a father, but not necessarily a mother.
Consider the following scenario:
A man has two wives, both of whom are pregnant during a shana m‘ubbereth, a Jewish leap year in which an extra month of Addar is intercalated. The first woman gives birth to his bechor on the thirtieth day of I Addar, and the second woman gives birth to a second son on the first day of II Addar (or any other day earlier than the thirtieth; this case could also occur if a single woman is pregnant with twins, the first of whom is born just before sunset on 30 I Addar, and the send of whom sees the air of the world after sunset, on 1 II Addar). As the two boys grow up, most of the years which they experience will be ordinary years, possessed of a single month of Addar. In particular, the thirteenth year, in which they reach their majority, is likely to be such a year. Thus, the pashut will become thirteen years old in 1 Addar. If he then contracts a marriage, and tragically dies suddenly very shortly thereafter, the twelve-year-old bechor will be a yavam to his brother’s widow, and capable of performing yibbum. In this way, we can resolve the apparent contradiction.
C.
Why, indeed, does the Torah place this stress on the performance of yibbum by the bechor (or, as the Chachamim later rule, in the absence of a bechor by the gadol, the greatest of the brothers; יבמות שם, וע"ע תורה תמימה על פסוקנו, אות צ' )?
I believe that our gmara provides a clue in a peculiar statement which occurs a bit later on the same page concerning the final clause of our passage: יוסף, קורין אותו יוסף, יוחנן, קורין אותו יוחנן (“[If the deceased’s name was] Yosef, they call [the baby] Yosef; [if it was] Yochanan, they call [the baby] Yochanan”). Not only is the choice of names used as examples highly unusual (the usual Talmudic practice, of course, is to speak of Re’uven and Shim‘on), but the statement begs the obvious question: Why Yosef and Yochanan?
Ana answer suggests itself if we refer to the séfer Séder ha-Doroth (ערך ר' יוחנן), where we find that not only was Rabbi Yochanan a lineal descendant of Yosef ben Ya‘aqov ha-tzaddiq, but he was considered by his contemporaries greatly to resemble Yosef in many of his personal characteristics, and even in appearance.
Rabbeinu Bechayé remarks on our passage that the apparent requirement that the child be named after the deceased is not necessarily to be taken literally; if the issue, after all, was that the name of the deceased not be erased from the roster of Israel, that could be as easily taken care of no matter whom the deceased’s widow married (עיי' מה שכתב הרמב"ן בענין זה דאין כונת הכתוב שייקרא שם הבכור הנולד ראובן או שמעון).
Rather, the issue is one of metaphysics.
D.
Chazal stress that a human being’s genetic makeup incorporates not only physical DNA, but also a metaphysical equivalent of DNA: אב ואם אית לנשמתא כמא דאית אב ואם לגופא בארעא (“The neshama has a father and mother, just as the body on earth has a father and mother”; זוה"ק ח"ב י"ב. וע"ע ח"ג קע"ד. ). So, Rabbeinu Bechayé tells us, "יקום על שם אחיו המת" בנפש ידבר הכתוב, זהו שאמר "ולא ימחה שמו מישראל" סבא וגו' (“‘And he will arise upon the name of his dead brother’ -- concerning the soul, Scripture is speaking; this is why it says ‘and his name will not be erased from [grandfather] Israel’....”).
The neshamoth of Israel have their identity in a series of some 600,000 permutations of the unbroken lines of descent from the twelve tribes, back to the Patriarchs. This, I think, is what the Talmud is alluding to in mentioning Yosef and Yochanan: That it is not only the original neshama of Yosef, preserved through all of his many other descendants, but the specific iteration that is Yochanan which is terribly important.
It is in order to ensure as much as possible that the yavam will have the proper kavvanoth, the proper intentions, in mind, and to ensure that the metaphysical germ plasm is accessed to be included in the soul-structure of the child, I believe, that the Torah, written and oral, specify that the bechor or the gadol amongst the brothers should be the one who performs this most unusual mitzva.
No comments:
Post a Comment