ETHICAL IMPERATIVE AND HALAKHIC INNOVATION
not?” It is clear that he must release her, but is it possible to compel him to do so? To this the Safed rabbi responds:
“Since she may not be taken in levirate marriage, we force (the levir) to release her through halitzah.”
This great rabbi gave his halakhic imprimatur to the desparate and blatantly extra-halakhic act of the unfortunate woman and thereby untied her bonds.
V. RABBI JUDAH LEIB ZIRELSOHN- MARRIAGE OF A KOHEN AND A CONVERT
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Zirelsohn of Kishinev wrote a remarkable responsum to a Bulgarian rabbi concerning a young woman who had converted to Judaism .'® Two years after her conversion, she became engaged to a Jew in her city. After all the preparations for the wedding had been completed, it was discovered that the bridegroom was a kohen (of priestly descent) and therefore forbidden to marry a convert.
The bride's parents, who had willingly agreed to her conversion, belonged to one of the outstanding families of the city. Her family was now shocked at the refusal to allow her to marry her fiance.“The local Christian community was in an uproar over this flagrant insult to the family by treating their daughter like a prostitute.” The bridegroom had threatened to convert to Christianity together with his fiance if they were not married by the rabbi. The Bulgarian rabbi asked for permission to marry them“in order to prevent a hilul hashem(desecration of God's Name) and especially at a time like this, when anti-Semitism is so rampant.”
wrote a learned halakhic responsum to this query. He contrasted the prohibition of an individual couple, a kohen and a convert with
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