לרפואת ר' עמיחי ישראל בן לאה
ר' מיכה חיים בן שרה
בתוך שח"י
Says the mishna at the beginning of Yevamos [daf yomi people - start learning Yevamos on the side so that by the time daf yomi gets there you have already completed the masechta and this will be chazara!! Or maybe you shouldn't already start and we can apply the rule of "דיה לצרה בשעתה" because Yevamos is so full of "צרות".... ]:
חמש עשרה נשים פוטרות צרותיהן וצרות צרותיהן מן החליצה ומן היבום עד סוף העולם
Fifteen categories of women constitute familial relations that are forbidden as incestuous, and consequently, these women exempt their rival wives and the rival wives of their rival wives from ḥalitza and from levirate marriage forever, i.e., they also exempt rival wives of rival wives of rival wives, and so on.
We skip a bit...
כיצד פוטרות צרותיהן היתה בתו או אחת מכל העריות האלו נשואות לאחיו ולו אשה אחרת ומת כשם שבתו פטורה כך צרתה פטורה הלכה צרת בתו ונשאת לאחיו השני ולו אשה אחרת ומת כשם שצרת בתו פטורה כך צרת צרתה פטורה
The mishna explains: How do these women exempt their rival wives? If, for example, his daughter or any one of those women with whom relations are forbidden was married to his brother and this brother had another wife, and the brother died, then just as his daughter is exempt from levirate marriage, so too her rival wife is exempt. If his daughter’s rival wife subsequently went and married his second brother, to whom she is permitted, and he had another wife, and he died childless as well, which means that his wife comes before the first yavam, the daughter’s father, for levirate marriage, then just as his daughter’s rival wife is exempt, so too the rival wife of her rival wife is exempt.
Says the Gemara:
דרישא למעוטי מאי ומנינא דסיפא למעוטי מאי
The Gemara asks a question with regard to the language of the mishna: The enumeration of the first clause of the mishna: Fifteen women, which indicates that those women alone are included in this list, serves to exclude what? Which other cases might have been included? And the enumeration of the latter clause, which states: These exempt their rival wives, again meaning these and no others, serves to exclude what? Since the mishna specifies only these women and no others, the Gemara asks which other women might have been included in these lists.
למעוטי דרב ודרב אסי לרב ולרב אסי למעוטי מאי
The Gemara answers that these enumerations come to exclude those additions of Rav and of Rav Asi. Rav added the rival wife of a woman suspected by her husband of adultery [sota], while Rav Asi added the rival wife of an aylonit. The Gemara asks: And according to the opinion of Rav and according to the opinion of Rav Asi, the enumeration of the mishna comes to exclude what?
אי סבירא להו דהדדי חדא למעוטי צרת ממאנת וחדא למעוטי צרת מחזיר גרושתו
The Gemara responds: If each maintains in accordance with the opinion of the other, then one enumeration of the mishna comes to exclude the rival wife of a wife who performed refusal. If the deceased brother had two wives, one of whom was a minor, and she refused the yavam, her rival wife is prohibited from levirate marriage with him. However, the latter is not entirely exempt and must perform ḥalitza. And the other one comes to exclude the rival wife of the wife of one who remarries his divorcée, i.e., a woman who was illicitly remarried by her former husband after she had been married to another man.
ואי לא סבירא להו דהדדי חדא למעוטי דחבריה וחדא למעוטי או צרת ממאנת או צרת מחזיר גרושתו
And if Rav and Rav Asi do not each maintain in accordance with the opinion of the other, then one enumeration comes to exclude the opinion of the other, as they do not agree that the halacha stated by the other should be included in the mishna, and the other one comes to exclude one of the above suggestions, either the rival wife of a wife who performed refusal or the rival wife of the wife of one who remarries his divorcée.
לרב ולרב אסי ליתנינהו
The Gemara asks: If so, according to the opinion of Rav and according to the opinion of Rav Asi, let the tanna teach these cases. Since in their opinions there are more than fifteen women to whom the principle of the mishna applies, why weren’t they all stated by the tanna of the mishna? The Gemara answers: They were not taught because they do not completely fit all of the halachic rulings here.
לפי שאינה בצרת צרה
The Gemara elaborates: This is because they do not involve the case of a rival wife of a rival wife. With regard to the fifteen women listed, the discussion of the mishna concerning rival wives and rival wives of rival wives is appropriate. However, the two cases cited by Rav and Rav Asi do not leave room for such deliberations, as both a sota and an aylonit are exempt and forbidden equally to all of the brothers, because their prohibition does not result from a familial relation to one of the living brothers but from a personal issue relating to the women themselves. Since none of the brothers may marry her rival wife, there is no possibility of a rival wife of a rival wife, and consequently these cases were omitted from the mishna’s list of fifteen women.
Tosfos asks that we have a ציור [case] of צרת צרה regarding a בועל so the mishna could have listed צרת סוטה. We quote:
וא"ת דמשכחת לה צרת צרה לענין בועל שנשאת לאחיו ולו אשה אחרת ומת בלא בנים
Question: We find the case of Tzaras Tzarah regarding a Bo'el (Reuven had Bi'ah with a married woman, Shlomis), if she married his brother (Shimon), and he (Shimon) has another wife (Dinah), and he (Shimon) died without children;
דפוטרת צרתה מן הבועל דלענין בועל נמי טומאה כתיב (הגהת הב"ח) בה כמו לענין בעל
She (Shlomis) exempts her Tzarah (Dinah) from the Bo'el (Reuven), for Tum'ah is written also regarding the Bo'el, just like regarding the husband;
ואם הלכה הצרה ונשאת לאחיו השני ולו אשה אחרת ומת כשם שהיא פטורה כך צרתה פטורה
If she (Dinah) married his second brother (Levi), and he has another wife (Sarah), and he died, just like she (Dinah) is exempt, so her Tzarah (Sarah) is exempt.
וי"ל דכיון דלגבי בעל לא משכחת צרת צרה אין לנו להחמיר בטומאה דגבי בועל יותר מטומאה דגבי הבעל
Answer #1: Since regarding the husband, we do not find the case of Tzaras Tzarah, we should not be more stringent about Tum'ah regarding the Bo'el than Tum'ah regarding the husband.
Why is it that we can't be more מחמיר regarding the טומאה of the בועל than we are regarding the טומאה of the בעל?
Explains Rosh Yeshivas Telz Rav Avraham Yitzchak Bloch ztz"l H"yd [he was killed by the Nazis ym"sh] in a shiur in the fall of 1937 [for the record, that year the Yankees beat the NY Giants (before they decided to become a football team - maybe they became a football team because they kept losing to the Yankees in baseball...) in the World Series in five games]:
".... דהטומאה לגבי בועל אינה דין בפ"ע אלא היא תולדה מדין טומאה לנעשה על ידו לגבי בעל, ומהאי טעמא א"א שיהא באיסורה לבועל דין שאינו נוהג באיסורה לבעל".
The טומאה [and איסור] of a woman towards her בועל is an outgrowth of the טומאה towards her בעל, and for this reason her status towards the בועל can't be more stringent than it is towards the בעל.
To buttress this thesis he quotes the מהר"א ששון who says that if a woman cheats on her husband with a second man, she is not forbidden to this second בועל since their relationship didn't create an איסור לבעל which was already in place because of her first forbidden fling. [Gotta love the alliteration!!😄]
So we see that the איסור לבועל is only created because of the איסור לבעל.
However we need not limit this yesod to the opinion of the מהר"א ששון. Even those who argue and say that she is אסורה to the second בועל, the reason can be that this second relationship ALSO forbids her to the בעל and thus she is אסורה לבועל. So EVERYBODY can hold that the איסור לבעל is a תולדה of the איסור לבועל. [Can this be? אין איסור חל על איסור?? How can she become אסורה לבעל now if she already was previously??]
