The names of the Talmud’s tractates are not always a sure guide to their contents. Tractate Yevamot is primarily devoted to the laws of levirate marriage—the obligation of a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow. But chapter 4, which Daf Yomi readers finished this week, also spent a good deal of time on the laws of illegitimacy and conversion. These may seem like totally unrelated topics, but in fact they emerge fairly naturally out of the main Talmudic discussion. In Yevamot 44a, for instance, the mishna states the law that a man who divorces a woman may not remarry her if she has been married to another husband in the interim. This rule comes directly out of the Torah, in Deuteronomy 24, where such a remarriage is described as an “abomination.”The Talmud always has a lot going on.
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Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
