Topics covered: Chapter 12, Mishna 1 Let’s get granular about the chalitzah ceremony. How many judges must preside over it? What kind of shoe may be used, when the yevama “removes the show” from upon his foot? What counts as …

Topics covered: Chapter 11, Mishna 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Chapter 12, Mishna 1 What happens when children get mixed up and we do not know who the father or mother is? What impact on levirate marriage? Chalitza? Priestly marriage? …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 6, Chapter 11, Mishna 1, 2 Nonmarital sexual relations can aberrant cases that upend expected outcomes under Torah law in terms of permitted/prohibited marriages. Conversion can also produce unexpected results because brothers at birth do …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 3, 4, 5, 6 Working through levirate marriage consequences when a minor boy is involved in a yibum situation. (Criminal law consequences are a different matter.) Rabbi Yochanan became furious when his student Rabbi Elazar …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 3 Working through what happens when a husband hears his wife has died, marries her sister, and then the wife returns. Is he permitted to return to his wife? The Gemara examines related laws where …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 2, 3 Is a single witness believed that a widow’s yavam has died? Is she believed? We do believe her to testify that her husband has died. What if a wife goes on a journey …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 2 What if the husband who went away and disappeared had their sole child with him, and a witness or witnesses reported that both of them died? If the child died first, and the husband …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 1, 2 The penalty for a woman, who remarries based on the testimony of a single witness that her first husband died and then that husband returns, is heavy. The implications are many, and this …

Topics covered: Chapter 10, Mishna 1 What happens when a husband goes away on a journey and disappears? Can the wife assume she’s a widow and remarry based on the testimony of a single witness? What happens if the first …