her to enter the synagogue, go over to where the brother-in-law was sitting during the reading of the Torah , and spit at him. So it was. She entered on Monday during the reading of the Torah , stood in front of the brother-in-law, and spat at him three times before the entire congregation. Each time she said:“I do not want this brother-in-law who wishes to marry me,” as was attested by three members of the congregation who stood nearby and constituted themselves a beit din, as they wrote.
Rabbi Galante was asked whether the woman had become forbidden to her brother-in-law and halitzah must be performed. Rabbi Galante replied with a long responsum using innumerable rabbinical precedents, concluding that the interplay between the woman and her brother-in-law in the synagogue did not constitute halitzah. Nevertheless, the partial and invalid rite did render yibbum impossible. Galante ruled that since the sister-in-law is unsuitable for yibbum, she must, instead,“be released.” In this way Rabbi Galante gave sanction, after the fact, to the woman’s desperate and dramatic act, which, by making it impossible for her brother-in-law to marry her, forced him to release her from the bonds of levirate marriage.
These three rabbinical verdicts, covering a period of more than 1500 years, all used radical methods to reach lenient decisions. Hillel used the“Language of Common Folk” of the marriage contracts of the Alexandrian women as if it were a rabbinic legal condition. This blatant legal fiction saved their offspring from becoming mamzerim. Now they could marry the partners of their choice.
Maimonides applied his own halakhic innovation of choosing the lesser evil to allow a Jewish man to marry his manumitted slave.
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