Resources for Yevamos daf 106
1. The גמרא says that if a woman makes a condition that if the יבם gives her a חליצה she will pay him $200, the חליצה is כשרה even if she doesn’t pay him. רש"י explains based on the גמרא in כתובות that the reason the חליצה is valid is because תנאי doesn’t work by חליצה since it isn’t similar to בני גד ובני ראובן as חליצה can’t be done via שליחות. Interestingly, the רמב"ם never brings the requirement of שליחות for a תנאי to work. The קובץ הערות in סימן ע"ו says a יסוד that is said by other אחרונים as well: there are two types of actions a person can do. One is where the person himself is making the חלות such as by קידושין and גירושין. Another type of action is where he does the action but the חלות happens on it’s own like by שחיטה. There are many differences between these two types of actions. One is whether you can make a תנאי. By קידושין one can make a תנאי that the קידושין should not be חל until the following day since he is the one making the חלות. However, one cannot make a תנאי that he doesn’t want the שחיטה to be חל until the next day since the חלות is not being done by him but rather happens ממילא. Therefore, רב אלחנן זצ"ל suggests that by חליצה the יבם just needs to do the action but that היתר לשוק (i.e. the חלות) happens on it’s own. Therefore, תנאי cannot be used. Another important נפקא מינה is if you need עדים by a חליצה just לקיום הדבר. We know that by קידושין we need two witnesses to witness the קידושין for it to be valid even if both the man and woman agree he gave her a ring. The reason is אין דבר שבערוה פּחות משנים לקיום הדבר. By contrast, if she is מזנה she is אסורה on her husband even if she did it with no witnesses’ seeing it. The reason is that the חלות of the איסור is not in her control; it happens ממילא. Consequently, חליצה would not need עדים לקיום הדבר either since the חלות happens on it’s own. In חידושי רבינו חיים הלוי על הרמב"ם in הלכות יבום וחליצה פּרק ד׳ הל׳ ט"ז Reb Chaim זצ"ל makes this point as well and says it is the שיטת הרמב"ם who seems to hold that חליצה without witnesses work מדאורייתא. He points out that it fits very well with the גמרא on the previous דף. The גמרא wonders according to ר"ע who says חליצה can be done privately “how will we know it happened?”. The גמרא doesn’t say you need עדים לקיום הדבר.
2. The גמרא says that a woman promised to give a man a lot of money to do חליצה and אביי said she should pay it as רש"י explains, like any other שכירות. רב פּפּא disagreed and said she could say משטה אני בך. There is a fascinating תשובה in אגרות משה inחושן משפּט חלק א׳ סימן ל"ז that relates to our סוגיא. The תשובה discusses a teacher who parted ways with his school and the school verbally agreed to pay the teacher’s moving expenses to the teacher’s new job. As soon as the teacher left it seems the school wanted to change its mind and not pay the moving expenses. Reb Moshe זצ"ל paskened that the school must pay even though no קנין was made. He explains that you cannot say משטה אני בך like we do by חליצה since the only reason משטה אני בך works by חליצה is because the יבם has a חיוב to do חליצה for free anyway (the ריטב"א says this explicitly and adds that the case of the man who needed to cross the river to escape was also a חיוב on the boat owner to save him). In the case of the teacher, he didn’t need to leave without going to ב"ד so you cannot say משטה אני בך. As far as the lack of קנין he says that you don’t need a קנין if you are hired to do a job under specific conditions and have already done it. His proof is from our סוגיא where אביי says the woman must pay the $200 for the חליצה even though no קנין was made with the man.
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