תּלמוד אויף במדבר 17:5

Rebbi Ayvu bar Naggari, Crispus, in the name of Rebbi Simeon ben Laqish. “The dead man’s wife should not be outside, to a strange man⁵⁸Deut. 25:5. “To be” referring to a woman means “to be married”, Deut.24:2. זר “strange” means “outside the clan”, cf. Num. 17:5. This is interpreted here to mean “outside her marriage group”, e. g., the High Priest for the widow..” That is a wife who is a stranger to him. The Torah said, she should not be his wife even in case of a commandment. That being, she should not need ḥalîṣah! Rebbi Jeremiah⁵⁹In the differently formulated Babli parallel, 20a, the author is Rav. It seems therefore that one should read “Rav Jeremiah” (first generation Babylonian) rather than “Rebbi Jeremiah” (fifth generation Galilean). said: “his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law”, the Torah increased the cases of ḥalîṣah⁶⁰Deut. 25:7 reads: “If the man does not want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go to the elders at the gate and she shall say: My levir refuses to sustain his brother’s name in Israel, my levir does not agree.” The second “sister-in-law” seems unnecessary; if it were written “then she shall go” it would have the same meaning. Since we hold that no word in the Torah is unnecessary, R. Jeremiah concludes that there is a sister-in-law who goes even though the levir did not refuse but Heaven refused for him. This is the subject of the next paragraph.! If from “his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law”, did the Torah not increase the cases of levirate⁶¹Since Deut. 25:7 also repeats “levir”, should there not be a levir who marries his sister-in-law even though the union otherwise would be forbidden?? Rebbi Ismael stated⁶²Sifry Deut. #289. There, the second “levir” is used to express what R. Jeremiah concluded from the first part of the verse: “My levir does not agree,” to exclude the case that the Omnipresent does not agree.: “My levir refuses”. That is, my levir refused, not that Heaven refused for him. In that case, she should not need ḥalîṣah! That means, the statement of Rebbi Jeremiah is needed, “his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law”, the Torah increased the cases of ḥalîṣah!