1,948. Why Did Chazal Break Up This Couple?

Yibum v’Chalitzah 7:17

Let’s say that two brothers, one of whom has all his faculties and the other of whom has congenital deafness, are married to two sisters. The sisters either both have full faculties or one has full faculties and the other has congenital deafness but, in either case, a sister with full faculties is married to a brother with full faculties. If the brother with congenital deafness dies, his wife is not obligated in chalitzah or yibum because she is the sister of the surviving brother’s wife. If the brother with full faculties dies, the brother with congenital deafness must give his wife a get because of her sister’s levirate bond to him. Since the marriage of the late brother with full faculties was wholly effected, the levirate bond to his brother with congenital deafness is also wholly effected. Conversely, marriage to the brother with congenital deafness is not wholly effected, with the result that the widow of the brother with full faculties is perpetually prohibited: the brother with congenital deafness can’t marry her because of her sister and he can’t perform chalitzah because of his congenital deafness.

Yibum v’Chalitzah 7:18

One might ask why the Sages ruled that, in the above scenario, a man with congenital deafness must divorce his wife with congenital deafness. After all, people with congenital deafness are not fully obligated in mitzvos; it’s like a child who eats non-kosher meat in that the court is not obligated to enforce observance. However, the Sages were concerned that if this couple were to remain married, the wife’s widowed sister might go and marry someone else. This would cause people to think that she was relieved of her levirate bond because the surviving brother was married to her sister. In order to prevent this, the brother with congenital deafness must give his wife get and her sister is perpetually prohibited.