Halizah

Halitsah or chalitzah (Hebrew: חליצה, romanized: ḥəliṣā) in Rabbinical Judaism the process by which a childless widow and a brother of her deceased husband may avoid the duty to marry under the biblical system of yibbum (levirate marriage)

The process involves the widow making a declaration, taking off a shoe of the brother (i.e., her brother-in-law), and spitting on the floor. Through this ceremony, the brother and any other brothers are released from the obligation of marrying the woman to conceive a child that would be considered the progeny of the deceased man. The ceremony of halitsa makes the widow free to marry whomever she desires, except for a Kohen "priest". (Deuteronomy 25:5–10).

It is sufficient for only one brother-in-law to perform the ceremony. Yibbum (Genesis 38:8) is thus modified in the Deuteronomic code attributed to Moses by permitting the surviving brother to refuse to marry his brother's widow provided he submits to the ceremony of halitsa. In the Talmudic period, this tendency was intensified by the apprehension that the brother-in-law might desire to marry his brother's widow for motives other than that of "establishing a name unto his brother." Therefore, many Talmudic and later rabbis preferred halitsa to marriage.^[1] As a result, yibbum fell into disuse; now halitsa is the general rule and marriage is the rare exception.^[2] However, the yibbum law is still presumed to be in force, thus making a childless widow who remarries someone other than her brother-in-law without performing the halitsa ceremony an adulterer.