Okay, so I know Loving Leah was a made-for-television movie that was screened last night (I don’t have a television, but I try to keep up with certain news), but what are “chalitza’ and “Yibum”?
Now, my apologies because I am not 100% informed about the plot of the movie. As I said, I prefer not to have a television (although we do have internet, otherwise I would not be able to blog) and even if I did have television, I am living in Israel and “Loving Leah” was not aired here. However, a friend gave me a plot summary, so I have an idea of what went on.
The review I received of the movie said that it was a sympathetic portrayal, much like that 80s film Stranger among Us, with Melanie Griffith as a cop going undercover in a certain Chassidic neighborhood in Brooklyn. I was told of some inaccuracies in the film, so I decided to write a blog to clear up some misunderstandings those of you who saw or heard of the popular film might have.
Yes, there is a Torah injunction that a widow should marry the brother of her deceased husband (this is called Yibum). The purpose is that the family should have descendants, so the name of the deceased brother should not disappear. What is perhaps less well-known (unfortunately) is that this is not done in modern times. It is similar to bigamy. We read about how the patriarchs had more than one wife (apart from Isaac), along with many other famous figures in the Bible. According to scripture alone, there is nothing wrong with Yibum or having more than one wife. However, it was decreed by Rabbeinu Gershon that one should not have more than one wife (at least this applied to the Jews of Europe). Similarly, a widow, in modern times, does not marry her brother-in-law.
Now, is this modifying the Torah? No, G-d forbid. The scripture itself describes a special ceremony called Chalitza that must be done if the widow and the brother-in-law don’t want to marry each other. Nowadays, the rabbis recommend that a childless widow with an unmarried brother-in-law participate in the ceremony rather than marry him. This isn’t some modern contrivance for convenience, but is described in scripture itself.
So what happens if the widow and the brother-in-law fall in love and want to marry each other after all (I think this is what happened in the movie)? It would be strongly discouraged. In fact, Susie Essman’s character would have been at least as annoyed that her daughter wanted to marry her deceased husband’s brother as she would that her daughter wanted to marry someone not religious (or as we say in Lubavitch, “not yet religious.”)
So, I hear the movie was warm and tried to be sympathetic…fine…just don’t come away from the movie thinking that we marry our brothers-in-law!