Levirate Marriage and the Family[ ]less man’s name by assigning him a child after his death. None of these
c a s e s s u g ge s t s t h a t a f a m i l y lo s e s a n e s s ent i a l e lement w hen a p er s on d ie s
without children; the loss is associated with the childless individual.
While rabbinic texts acknowledge that individuals may want chil-
dren, they treat procreation as a religious obligation, a divine command-
ment. Mishnah Yevamot : sets the parameters of the commandment:
A man should not neglect [the commandment of] procreation
unless he [already] has children. The School of Shammai says:
[A man has fulfilled his obligation when he has] two male children.
The School of Hillel says: One male and one female, as it is written,
“Male and female He created them” (Gen. 5:2). If he marries a
woman and lives with her ten years and she does not give birth, he
cannot neglect [his obligation]. If he divorces her, she may marry
another man. That man may live with her for ten years. If she
miscarries, he counts [ten years] from the time of the miscarriage
[before he is obligated to divorce her]. Men are obligated to
procreate, but not women. R. Yohanan ben Beroka says: Regarding
both of them, it says, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘... Be
fruitful and multiply’ ” (Gen. 1:25).This mishna understands procreation to be a positive commandment
that should be fulfilled and that can be quantified or measured. The tal-
mudic discussion of this mishna determines that a man fulfills his obli-
gation even if his children predecease him, provided that he is survived
by grandchildren.^60 The connection between the commandment of pro-
creation and levirate is clear; if a person has fulfilled the commandment
to procreate, there is no need for levirate.
For the rabbis, procreation was not so much a man’s attempt to pre-
serve his name or lineage as it was a response to a divine command-
ment. The rabbis designate procreation as a religious obligation and fix
pa ra meters a s to when t he obl igat ion is f u l fi l led. T h is desig nat ion ma kes
procreation an individual concern rather than a family concern. Since
the dead have no obligations and cannot fulfill commandments, there
is no pressure on or reason for the surviving brother to procreate on his
brother’s behalf. In fact, it is impossible to do so; procreation is not a
commandment that can be fulfilled by an agent. The rabbis are able to