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רבי יהודה אוסר – as it is written (Deuteronomy 23:1): “No man shall marry his father’s former wife, so as to remove his father’s garment” (i.e., to lay claim to what his father had possessed: Cf. Leviticus 18:8, 20:11, Ezekiel 16:8 and Ruth 3:9). The garment that his father saw, he should not reveal. But the Halakha is not according to the Rabbi Yehuda. But the Sages prohibited those summoned on suspicion of intercourse from the woman. To marry her daughter, or her sister, or her mother or one of her relatives, because she is found with them always, and the come to get accustomed to sin. But if he transgressed and married one of these relatives of the woman he raped or seduced or of the relatives of his wife whom he was suspected of having relations with her, we don’t remove her from his hands. But our Mishnah which teaches: “They marry the kinswomen of a woman who one has raped or seduced,” that applies, even ab initio. We are speaking after the death of the raped or seduced woman, for now, there isn’t a suspicion lest after that he will marry her daughter, he will be faithless with the first.

ולא יגלה כנף אביו, “and neither is he to uncover his father’s robe.” According to the Talmud, tractate Yevamot, folio 49, what is meant here by the word כנף, is a robe which his father was in the habit of revealing, i.e. a woman with whom his father had indulged in extra marital relations. We find this word in a similar context in Ruth 3,9, where Ruth requests that Boaz, as her late husband’s redeemer become her partner in a levirate marriage.

They also claim that the phrase when brothers dwell together denotes close relatives, but not actual brothers. They bring the case of Boaz [cf. Ruth 3: 9 ; Ruth 3: 13] as evidence. This is vacuous, however, because no mention is made there of the word yibbum [here translated as “acting as the husband’s brother” — Translator], only of “redemption” [cf. Leviticus 25: 25]. Besides, what, then, is the meaning of the word together ? That they live in the same country? In the same courtyard? That they are fond of each other? The Dissenters claim further that the Scriptural usage of the term act as her husband’s brother proves that she is his brother’s wife in name only, but not in fact, as in the phrase “your brother’s wife has returned” [Ruth 1: 16]. But they have stumbled into error. Note that regarding the sons of Y ǝ hudah, Scripture explicitly says, “act as her husband’s brother” [Genesis 38: 8], although there he clearly already was her husband’s brother. Even the abovementioned use of the word “your brother’s wife” can be understood on the grounds that the two women were married to two brothers. Every sensible person knows that, although the prohibitions that were told to Moshe were not forbidden beforehand, if someone before the time of Moshe refrained from engaging in such actions he would not have displeased God . Scripture even states, “for the men of the land who preceded you practiced all these abominations” [Leviticus 18: 27], and yet we have no evidence that any prophet had ever admonished them against such actions. With respect to Onan Scripture specifically says that he did not “provide progeny for his brother” [Genesis 38: 9] and consequently “it was evil in the sight of God ” [Genesis 38: 10]. For these reasons, we will rely on the tradition that actual brothers are meant here.