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Marriage and its obstacles in Jewish law : essays and responsa / edited by Walter Jacob and Moshe Zemer
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135
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MOSHE ZEMER

(Yevamot 8:4). Thus even had the man been a eunuch as an infant, he might have become potent by the time he was married.

Given these doubts concerning his diagnosis as a congenital eunuch and the relevant halakhic precedents, Rabbi Palaches beit din ruled that the presumed eunuch was the father of his wifes son. His sons and grandsons were thereby fully cleared of the stigma of mamzerut.

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Herzog was consulted with regard to a Yemenite Jew who had betrothed his minor daughter to a Jew in Asmara , in Eritrea . He failed to inform his daughter or the rest of the family of the alliance. When she reached maturity she married another Jew and bore him a son. When they came to Israel on aliyah, the son was declared a mamzer.

Rabbi Herzog proposed two avenues for resolving this problem:

(1) We might cast doubt on the validity of the betrothal in Asmara , because the grooms relatives were mixed in among the bystanders and the groom had not designated specific witnesses.

(2) Instead, he suggested adopting the aforementioned solution of Rabbi Schwadron; that is, to have the first husband send a get by messenger and then cancel it without notice, thereby retroactively annulling the betrothal. Ultimately, however, Rabbi Reuven Katz of Petah Tikvah discovered that one of the witnesses in Asmara was married to a non-Jewish woman, which disqualified him, invalidated the betrothal, and cleared the child of the stigma of mamzerut.

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