cellio | daf bit: Yevamot 97

(Today's daf is 96.)

The talmud talks about the case of the sons of a woman who converted. According to the mishna, if a woman who converted along with her sons, those sons do not participate in levirate marriage or chalitzah, the declining of it. (This makes sense; see below.) Even if one son is not conceived in holiness but is born in holiness -- meaning, she converted between his conception and his birth -- and the other was both conceived and born in holiness (after she convered), this applies according to the mishna. (This confuses me; see below.) The g'mara discusses all this over the next few pages; I'm not clear yet on what the final answer is. (97b)

A convert is not related to his biological parents, halachically speaking, so it makes sense to me that an actual convert (halachically) doesn't have brothers and therefore isn't obligated to marry his brother's widow. And if one son is born before she converted and the other after, this still makes sense; one of them isn't related to her. But I was taught that a child born after the mother converts, no matter how soon after, is born a Jew. So two sons born after the mother converted should both be related to her and thus to each other, regardless of when they were conceived, so I would expect the laws of levirate marriage to apply. And maybe they do in the end; as I said; I haven't worked through all the ensuing discussion.