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by permitting it, but the Knesses Yechezkel disagrees with him and
prohibits it.”

We learn from this discussion that there is no obligation to fulfill
the wishes of the deceased if in consequence the woman will have to
wait for twenty four months without remarrying and will also have
extra difficulty remarrying because of the child who is dependent on
her.

[However, we must consider whether this decree was possibly only
enacted for regular situations, whereas a widow who became preg-
nant through posthumous artificial insemination might be exempt
from waiting twenty four months.] Although artificial insemination
is a relative novelty, having been employed only in the past several
decades, the basic idea is alluded to in maseches Chagigah (14b) where
the gemara says:“They asked Ben Zoma, is a pregnant virgin allowed
to marry a Kohen Gadol [a Kohen Gadol is only allowed to marry a
virgin]?” The gemara concludes that such a woman is permitted to
him because we believe her explanation that she became pregnant in
a bathtub [through accidental insemination] with sperm that a man
had deposited there.2 The Birkei Yosef asks (Even Ha’ezer 13,10) how
we can allow the Kohen Gadol to marry her, since it is forbidden to
marry a woman who is pregnant with another man’s child. This prob-
lem leads the Birkei Yosef to try and argue that since bathtub insem-
ination is a very uncommon occurrence, the Sages did not include it
in their decree. The Birkei Yosef then proposes an alternative rebuttal
of his question, namely that perhaps in Ben Zoma’s time the Sages
had not yet enacted their decree against marrying a woman carrying
or nursing another man’s child but once the decree was enacted it in-
cluded a virgin who became pregnant through bathtub insemination.

Now in the case under consideration, certainly should we decide
that a woman who became pregnant through bathtub insemination
may not marry while she is pregnant or nursing -- it is clear that in
regard to our question too she will be unable to remarry and will

2. See our earlier discussion of this topic in siman 250.

A Husband’s request for Posthumous Artificial Inseminatio 2 65