Resources for Yevamos daf 26
1. The משנה says that if the עד who allowed a woman to get married subsequently lost his own wife, he is allowed to marry the woman he testified about. The reason there is no חשד is because the עד was married when he gave his testimony. There is a very obvious question on this משנה: people were allowed to marry two wives in the time of the משנה, so why is it so obvious that if the עד is married that he won’t testify falsely? Maybe he wanted this lady in addition to his own wife? The תפארת ישראל in יכין אות פּ says that even in the time of חז"ל, it was very uncommon for people to have more than one wife. The ערוך לנר answers this question by making a דיוק in רש"י. He points out that רש"י in ד"ה שהיו says that the עד’s wife died "לאחר זמן". Why does רש"י have to add that his wife died “after a while” and only then did he remarry? He answers that this is the key to the explanation of why we can allow him to marry the woman even though he testified about her. He explains that if this guy was lying and just said her husband was dead when he wasn’t, why did he wait a long time to pursue her? He should have tried to marry her right away? The fact that he waited a long time until after his wife passed away is a proof that he had no intention of taking her as a second wife when he gave his original testimony. The ערוך לנר admits that the הלכה that he could marry the woman he testified about would apply even if his wife happened to die right away. Nonetheless, that is unusual and רש"י is just trying to explain why made this היתר in general.
2. The גמרא says that if the עד who testified about a woman that her husband died was himself married and now gets divorced, he may be able to marry the woman he testified about. However, it depends on if he had been fighting with his wife prior to giving his testimony. רש"י explains that if he only started fighting with his wife when he gave his testimony, we are afraid he started fighting to have an excuse to divorce her so he could marry this woman he testified about. The ים של שלמה in סימן כ"א disagrees and learns the opposite way: if he was fighting before his testimony then we are afraid he lied because he didn’t like his wife anyway and was looking for a new wife. However, if he hadn’t been fighting beforehand then we assume he wasn’t looking for a new wife since he had פּת בסלו.
3. The גמרא says that in a case where three sisters fall to two brothers, if you hold that the two brothers need to each do חליצה to the last יבמה, it means that you must hold יש זיקה. What does the fact that a חליצה פּסולה has to be done by each brother have to do with whether you hold יש זיקה or not? רש"י explains that the opinion that holds יש זיקה holds that זיקה is “powerful enough” to be חל on both brothers. Therefore, if the חליצה is a weak חליצה because יבום couldn’t have done anyway, then it won’t be strong enough to knock out the זיקה from all the brothers on its own. There is a very yesodosdik רמב"ן on דף נ"א ד"ה והא who says a different פּשט. He says that if you hold אין זיקה, then the only thing we look at is the original קידושין of the deceased brother which we view as being on the whole house. Therefore, once חליצה is done, it takes care of the old brothers קידושין. However, if you hold יש זיקה then we view all of the brothers to be individually connected to the יבמה. How we view the חליצה depends: if you could have done יבום , then we are again only focused on the deceased brothers קידושין. In such cases, we view the חליצה as במקום יבום and once יבום is done then all the brothers are released. However, if יבום couldn’t have been done then we view the חליצה as simply there to remove the individual connection or “mini marriage” that each brother had to the יבמה, similar to a גט. Therefore, each brother will need his own חליצה.
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