[Avodah] Yebamoth and Megilath Ruth

[Zev Sero]

T613K at aol.com wrote:
> RZS writes:

>> Ruth and Orpah were not Jewish when they were married to Machlon and
>> Kilyon.  We learn hilchot gerut from the exchange between Ruth and
>> Naomi on their way to EY, after Machlon and Kilyon died.  Therefore
>> they were never legally married to Machlon and Kilyon, and had Naomi
>> remarried and had a son, he would have been allowed to marry the now-
>> Jewish Ruth.<<

> Yes but what mitzva of yibum is there if your brother married a non-Jew? 

None at all.  Any more than there's a mitzvah of yibum for the widows
of other relatives.


> If she converts to Judaism after he dies, she is now a new-born person, 
> not his wife.

Exactly.  There's no legal relationship at all, just a moral one.

  
> Actually I always wondered that about the whole story of Ruth.  It seems 
> to me it was more of a midas chasidus, lifnim mishuras hadin, for Boaz 
> to marry Ruth.  Surely no one had any yibum obligation towards her -- is 
> what it seems to me.

The moral obligation seemed to go together with the property.  AIUI,
the idea was that if you took over the property, you took over the
moral obligation to take care of the niftar's debts, which in this
case included taking care of his widow.  And since she was a young
woman in need of a husband and with no shiduch prospects, taking care
of her meant marrying her.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas