Resources for Yevamos daf 41

1.      The גמרא says that according to רב, we would say מתה אשתו מותר ביבמתו. The reason is that he holds a יבמה שהותרה ונאסרה וחזרה והותרה is מותרת. The ראשונים deal with a fundamental question: after he married the sister of the יבמה, assuming he was the only brother, the יבמה was completely מותרת לשוק. If so, how could we say she now becomes אסורה? We have a principle of דרכיה דרכי נועם!  The ריטב"א in ד"ה איבעיא להו says that רב was only talking about a case where his wife died while the other brother was still alive so she was never מותרת לשוק. This is against תוספות on דף ב ע"א ד"ה ואחות who says that even if the יבמה was פּטורה from only one of several brother she can’t become זקוקה again to that brother because of דרכיה דרכי נועם. However, there is a lengthy רשב"א here (probably the most famous רשב"א in יבמות) who disagrees with the ריטב"א and says that the משמעות of our גמרא is that it even includes a case where the other brother died before his wife died. He is therefore מחדש an incredible חידוש: when our גמרא says she goes back to her original היתר, it means just that—there is a היתר but not a חיוב יבום. In other words, once the איסור אשת אח falls away at the beginning, it never comes back. So the brother whose wife died is allowed to marry her, but she isn’t זקוקה ליבום in any way and can remarry at any time (unless there are other brothers in which case she will need a חליצה from them). There isn’t even a לאו of כיון שלא בנה שוב לא יבנה because no action was done to the יבמה such as יבום or חליצה. The קובץ הערות in סימן א ס"ק ז points out the that רשב"א is only going according to the שיטת חכמים since obviously according to אבא שאול who says that if you don’t have the proper כוונות it is considered פּוגע בערות אשת אח, it must be that אבא שאול holds the אשת אח never leaves. However, he says it is possible that אבא שאול just means מדרבנן.

The רמב"ם in הלכות יבום פּרק ז׳ הל׳ ח says clearly that it doesn’t matter when the brother died, in either case once his wife dies the יבמה is חייב ביבום or חליצה. That is not like the ריטב"א or רשב"א. In חידושי ר׳ ראובן סימן א he explains that the רמב"ם holds that דרכיה דרכי נועם is not a הלכה that must be applied to every case. Rather, it is just a גילוי מילתא of what the תורה intended. Therefore, generally speaking a woman who never fell to יבום cant become מחויבת later because of דרכי נועם. However, once she fell to יבום, even if she later became פּטורה, she can still become מחויבת again and we don’t need to apply דרכי נועם to that case.

2.      The מהריט"א in קהלת יעקב דף ע"ט dealt with the following interesting question: if you have an אתרוג of ערלה and a אתרוג כשר that get mixed together, can you pick up each one and be יוצא the מצוה ממה נפשך since you certainly also picked up the kosher one, or do we say that since an אתרוג must be ראוי לאכילה and in practice you can’t eat either one because it is a ספק ערלה, therefore both are not good? The שו"ת רב פּעלים in או"ח חלק א סימן ל"ה says that there is a clear proof from our גמרא. Our גמרא says that if one person is מקדש one of two sisters and we don’t know which one and he dies, the sisters both do חליצה to the brother but cant do יבום. The גמרא explains that this isn’t a violation of the principle כל שאינו עולה ליבום אינו עולה לחליצה because if אליהו הנביא came and told us which one was really married to the deceased brother then she could do יבום. The רב פּעלים points out that we see from here that something is called ראוי even if in practice they can’t do the מצוה since all we need is אליהו הנביא to come to tell you which one is the correct one. Similarly, by the case of the אתרוג, even though neither אתרוג can’t be eaten in prcatice, it is still called ראוי לאכילה since if אליהו הנביא would tell us which one is ערלה then the other one could be eaten.