“Nowhere in the sphere of Jewish marriage laws is there so much ignorance – and, what’s worse, superstition – as in the case of the laws of yibum and chalitzah,” said my father, Dayan Grunfeld, dayan of the London Beth Din.
“And yet nowhere is the sublime conception of the Jewish family as a collective personality more apparent than in the ancient institution of the Levirate Marriage. It shows the brother-in-law as the natural protector of his late brother’s wife. Having once entered the family circle, the widow is to retain the protection, goodwill, and friendship of all the members of her late husband’s family. I have often experienced how misinformed people who refused to cooperate in chalitzah, and thus help their sister-in-law to set up a new home, have afterward gladly cooperated once they’d been enlightened as to the beautiful ideas that underlie this ancient law.”