Resources for Kesubos 64
1. The גמרא says that there is a ספק about whether a מורדת can keep her בלאותיה קיימין or not. Therefore, if she is תופס we don’t take it away from her but if she doesn’t take it we don’t give it to her. There is a famous מחלוקת ראשונים at the beginning of בבא מציעא on דף ו׳ ע"ב ב as to what the דין is if someone is תופס when there is a ספק. The case there is a ספק בכור and the question is if the כהן is תופס the animal do we take it away from him. The רמב"ם in הלכות בכורות פּרק ה׳ הל׳ ג says that we don’t take it away from the כהן and תוספות and the רא"ש there say that we do take the animal away from him. The ביאור הגר"א in יו"ד סימן שט"ו ס"ק ב brings our גמרא as a proof to the רמב"ם that we don’t take it away as you see from our גמרא that תפיסה works! However, the אבני מילואים in סימן ע"ז ס"ק י"ג disagrees and says that our סוגיא is totally different. In all cases where תפיסה is an issue (such as the case of the בספק בכור), the reason why תפיסה doesn’t work is because there is a מרא קמא and we have a rule of המוציא מחברו עליו הראיה. In our case, there is no clear מרא קמא. In other words, this is exactly the ספק of רבא! רבא isn’t sure if she gets to keep the בלאותיה קיימין or not because he is מסופּק who is the מוחזק in them—is it the husband or wife? Therefore, you cannot say “return it to the מרא קמא” because we don’t know who that is.
2. The גמרא discusses the מימרא of שמואל of the difference between when a man is תובע the יבמה where we are נזקקין לו versus when she is תובע him and we are not נזקקין לה. רש"י in ד"ה תבע לחלוץ says the case is where the יבם wants either יבום or חליצה and she wants the opposite. תוספות in ד"ה תבע suggests the case is where he is תובע either יבום or חליצה and she refuses to do either and vice versa. תוספות then asks that if the case is that the woman is תובעת something and the husband refuses to do anything then why does she have to make a claim that she needs children as חוטרא לידא? The משנה is יבמות says that a husband doesn’t have the option to do nothing! תוספות answers that even though the husband must do יבום or חליצה, we still wouldn’t write an אגרת מרד without the woman making that claim. The קובץ שיעורים has the following הערה: it sounds like from תוספות’s question that if neither one of them is תובע anything, we aren’t נזקקין to anyone. Why not? Aren’t we כופין על המצוות? Doesn’t he at least have to do חליצה? Reb Elchonon זצ"ל wants to bring a proof from here the famous discussion of the חכם צבי in his first תשובה as to whether חליצה is a real מצוה or a just a מתיר for the woman to remarry. Reb Elchonon זצ"ל understands that תוספות must hold that חליצה is just a מתיר, so if the woman isn’t תובע anything then we don’t force anyone to do חליצה and just let them be. However, he brings another proof that it is a מצוה from the fact that we say that there are דינים דאורייתא that are "לכתחילה" by חליצה such as קריאת הפּרשה. That would indicate that it a מצוה and not just a מתיר.
Regarding the מצות יבום as far as the woman is concerned, the גמרא says that if a שומרת יבם demands יבום we say “זיל לא מפקדת”. רש"י says that she isn’t commanded to do פּרו ורבו. The question is that we aren’t talking about פּרו ורבו—we are talking about the מצות יבום! Apparently you see that רש"י understands the מצות יבום to be an outgrowth of and dependent on the מצוה of פּרו ורבו. The רשב"א in תשובות סימן י"ח says that a ברכה is not recited on יבום since the woman is not מצווה על פּרו ורבו so it doesn’t really apply to her. Interestingly, the אבודרהם in ברכת המצוות ומשפּטיהם ד"ה תשובה הכי says something very similar but not quite the same. He says a man doesn’t recite a ברכה on חליצה because it’s a "מצוה הבאה בעבירה" and a woman doesn’t say a ברכה since she isn’t commanded on פּרו ורבו. Either way, they both seem to understand like רש"י that the מצות יבום and פּרו ורבו are connected.
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