Tafsiran Imamat 20:21: Rashi, Tur HaArokh, Rabbeinu Bahya & Rav Hirsch

נדה הוא means, this cohabitation ought to be kept at a distance (avoided) and is loathsome. Our Rabbis explained that these words prohibit the slightest approach to her [I.e. one is liable for superficial contact, as is defined in the commentary on verse 18] just as though she were a נדה in the case of whom such intimacy is expressly stated as forbidden, as it says, (v. 18) “he hath uncovered her fountain” (cf. Yevamot 54a).

אשת אחיו, נדה היא, “the wife of his brother, is as forbidden as a menstruating woman.” Our sages (Yevamot 54) interpret this somewhat unclear wording to mean that even incomplete coitus with one’s sister-in-law is as serious a sin as sleeping with one’s own wife while she is menstruating. The penalty makes this point quite clear. Some commentators feel that the Torah was especially harsh here, seeing that under certain circumstances, such as the brother having died without ever having had children, it may actually become a mitzvah to marry this sister-in-law who had become widowed by performing the levirate marriage ceremony with her.

ואיש אשר יקח את אשת אחיו נדה היא, “when a man takes his brother’s wife it is loathsome, etc.” The Torah does not mean to use the term נדה here in the sense that such a woman is considered like a menstruous woman to her brother-in-law; the term is used in the same sense as the expression זמה היא, “it is sexual depravity.” The meaning is similar to the meaning of the word חסד in verse 17, i.e. it is despicable. Our sages in Yevamot 54 derive an halachic rule from this expression, i.e. that even partial insertion of just the tip of his member in the vagina without ejaculation is culpable. The reason the sages say this is because the Torah specifically mentioned this form of penetration in connection with a menstruous woman in verse 18.