Ketubot, Chapter 2, Lesson 13
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI
Table of Contents
- General Overview
- Introduction and methodology for the passage on 18b
- The structure of the Mishnah: “the mouth that prohibited” regarding signed witnesses
- The question of why “the mouth that prohibited” is needed in order to invalidate the document
- Foundations of the law of documents: written testimony and the need for documents
- Validation of documents: balancing against the danger of forgery
- A document versus the claim “I already paid” and a receipt
- Migo versus “the mouth that prohibited”: Rashi and Tosafot
- A baraita on page 19: three groups of witnesses and the move to “two against two”
- Rav Nachman: set two against two and leave the money in the possession of its owner
- The significance of the law of documents in creating a “two against two” case and its implication for “the mouth that prohibited”
- The move back to page 18: when the signatories are also the ones validating and invalidating
Summary
General Overview
The lecture presents the Mishnah on page 18b as one of the more complicated passages in the Talmud, because it ties together many different mechanisms, such as “the mouth that prohibited,” retracting and retestifying, a person rendering himself wicked, splitting testimony, and two against two. The teaching method is to begin by reading the Mishnah and the baraita themselves, and only afterward to break down the various aspects one by one. The Mishnah is presented as continuing a pattern that appears in other mishnayot as well: when the validity of the document depends on the witnesses themselves, they also have the power to undermine it, but when there is an outside source validating the document, that power disappears. The introduction emphasizes the foundations of the law of documents, the rabbinic enactment of document validation as a response to the danger of forgery, and the fact that once a document has been validated it functions in Jewish law as testimony that has already been examined in court, which gives rise to the two-against-two problem in the baraita on page 19. In the end, a framework is built from which it emerges that the central complication on page 18 is that the very witnesses signed on the document are also the ones validating it and invalidating it, which brings in the rules of retracting and retestifying and the other principles that do not appear on page 19.
Introduction and methodology for the passage on 18b
The passage is defined as especially complex because it branches in many directions, and each branch is a broad topic in its own right. Those branches are interconnected, so every discussion has to take the others into account. The lecture is structured so that it begins with the Mishnah and Talmudic text themselves in order to get an integrated picture, and only afterward is each aspect treated separately. The assumption is that understanding page 19 gives a better foundation for understanding page 18.
The structure of the Mishnah: “the mouth that prohibited” regarding signed witnesses
The Mishnah rules that witnesses signed on a document who say, “This is indeed our handwriting, but we were coerced, we were minors, we were disqualified as witnesses,” are believed, because the validity of the document was created through them and therefore they also have the ability to take that validity away. The Mishnah adds that if there are other witnesses who validate their handwriting, or if their handwriting appears from another source, then the signed witnesses are not believed to disqualify themselves. The explanation is that there is no contradiction here between the outside witnesses and the signed witnesses, but rather a change in the mechanism of credibility: when the court receives the document’s validity from another source, the signed witnesses are no longer “the mouth that prohibited,” and therefore they no longer have the halakhic power to undermine its validity. The distinction is sharpened by the fact that the witnesses are not litigants concerning the debt itself; they are testifying about their signatures. But their status becomes crucial because in document validation they are the source of the document’s legal force.
The question of why “the mouth that prohibited” is needed in order to invalidate the document
The lecture sharpens a basic difficulty: if witnesses say that they are disqualified witnesses, why not believe them even without “the mouth that prohibited,” and why is a special mechanism needed in order to invalidate the document? The difficulty becomes especially sharp in a case where there are other witnesses who validate the document, because then we say that the signed witnesses have no credibility to invalidate it, but we still have to ask why “the mouth that prohibited” is needed in the first place in order to grant credibility to the invalidation. The answer is developed later from within the concepts of the law of documents, document validation, and the structure of two against two.
Foundations of the law of documents: written testimony and the need for documents
The foundation is that, according to the basic law, two witnesses signed on a document are regarded as “as though their testimony had been examined in court,” and therefore a signed document functions like live testimony in court even if the witnesses are not present. The lecture notes that this is problematic in light of the rule “from their mouths and not from their writing.” Maimonides holds that the law of a document is a rabbinic enactment because written testimony is not accepted at the Torah level, whereas according to other views the law of a document is Torah-level. The motivation for the law of documents is to make possible a functioning loan market and ordinary commerce, because without a document one would have to keep the witnesses available at all times, which would prevent loans and land sales.
Validation of documents: balancing against the danger of forgery
It is said that there is a price to giving legal force to a document, because a document can be forged. Therefore the Sages instituted the enactment of validating documents: a document cannot be collected on until its signatures are validated, either through witnesses who recognize the signatures, through the signed witnesses themselves, or through comparison to another validated document. The enactment is cumbersome, but still more efficient than dependence on the original witnesses, because validation can be done in different ways and by many people familiar with the handwriting. It is established that the enactment of validating documents is rabbinic, even if the underlying law of documents is disputed.
A document versus the claim “I already paid” and a receipt
The lecture explains that a document contains an additional element beyond the testimony itself: “What is your document doing in my hand?” In other words, the very fact that the lender still has the document seemingly proves that the debt has not been paid, and therefore against a validated document one cannot claim, “I paid.” If the lender says he lost the document, the solution is writing a receipt, so that he will not be able to collect again in the future with the document. After the enactment of document validation, before the document is validated the borrower can deny the whole thing and demand validation; but if the borrower admits the document itself and claims it was paid, he is in effect validating the document himself, and then one has to explain how his claim can nevertheless still help him.
Migo versus “the mouth that prohibited”: Rashi and Tosafot
It is said that according to Tosafot, a claim of “paid” against an unvalidated document can stand by force of “the mouth that prohibited,” whereas according to Rashi it is understood as a migo from the ability to deny the whole debt, and not as “the mouth that prohibited,” because the claimant knows the basic facts even without the defendant. The lecture presents how this raises the question whether migo helps here at all, because migo against witnesses is problematic when a “document” is treated as testimony.
A baraita on page 19: three groups of witnesses and the move to “two against two”
The baraita describes a case in which two people are signed on the document and died, and two unrelated witnesses validate their handwriting but add that the signed witnesses were coerced, minors, or disqualified as witnesses, and it says that they are believed. In the latter clause it says that if there are other witnesses who validate their handwriting, or if their handwriting appears elsewhere from a document that was challenged and then upheld in court, “these are not believed,” and at first glance the implication is: “and we collect with it as with a fully valid document.” The Talmud asks about the latter clause, “But why? This is two against two,” because once the document is validated it is considered testimony examined in court, and therefore the witnesses invalidating it stand against the testimonial force of the signatories themselves.
Rav Nachman: set two against two and leave the money in the possession of its owner
Rav Nachman rules that we set two against two and leave the money in the possession of its owner, similar to the example of “the palm tree of bar Shatya.” From this it follows that the conclusion is not that we collect with the document when there is a two-against-two case, but rather that the document is not torn up and is not fully decided either; the court does not extract money on its basis because the borrower is in possession. The difference between the first clause and the latter clause is that in the first clause we tear up the document because the invalidation was accepted by force of “the mouth that prohibited,” whereas in the latter clause we do not tear it up but leave it hanging in uncertainty, with discussion among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the significance of seizure in such a case.
The significance of the law of documents in creating a “two against two” case and its implication for “the mouth that prohibited”
The lecture emphasizes that the two-against-two situation is not between the validating witnesses and the invalidating witnesses, because the validating witnesses are not testifying about the loan or the fitness of the witnesses but only identifying signatures. Rather, it is between the signed witnesses, who received the status of examined testimony, and the invalidating witnesses. From here the claim is built that in the first clause of the baraita there is really also a two-against-two situation, and only “the mouth that prohibited” decides in favor of invalidation. It follows that “the mouth that prohibited” operates even where standing against it is the testimonial force of a document. From that it is said that this framework is the basis for understanding page 18, and the discussion will go on to deepen the question of how “the mouth that prohibited” deals with “witnesses” created by force of document validation.
The move back to page 18: when the signatories are also the ones validating and invalidating
It is said that on page 18 the complication grows because the signed witnesses themselves are the ones validating the document and also the ones invalidating it, so the three positions from the baraita on page 19 collapse into one pair of witnesses. It is argued that the attempt to “split” their statements into different roles raises the rules of retracting and retestifying and brings in the discussion of a person rendering himself wicked and the other components unique to this passage. The lecture ends with a demand to review the foundations built on page 19 so that the continued reading of page 18 will rest on a clear framework.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We are in the passage of the Mishnah on page 18b, one of the harder passages in the Talmud, by the way, and one of the more complex ones.
[Speaker B] Until now we had it easy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Life was easy until now. No, no, the Gemara itself is fine, you can get through the Gemara, but there are a lot of branches here, and the question is how deeply to get into all the aspects and the connections between them. What makes it more complicated here is that all these aspects are somehow tied to one another, and each one has to take the others into account: retracting and retestifying, a person rendering himself wicked, splitting testimony, two against two. Each one of those topics is broad in its own right, and somehow they all connect together. I myself am still hesitating a little about how to structure this, so I thought that specifically in order to integrate it properly, we would start with the passage itself, simply with the Gemara. I want to devote today to this Gemara. I’ll comment on the different aspects as we read, and then we’ll have some sort of overall picture. In the coming lectures I’ll start treating those aspects one by one, but I hope we’ll already have a picture that integrates them. Okay, so we begin with the Mishnah itself. The Mishnah is actually structured very similarly to mishnayot we already saw earlier. Also the Mishnah on page 16, and also a Mishnah that really appears later on page 22 but we already saw it — there’s one case of “the mouth that prohibited,” and after that if there are witnesses, then there is no “mouth that prohibited,” and then no. Right, so he is exempt. That’s basically the structure of all those mishnayot, and it’s also the structure of this Mishnah. “Witnesses who said: This is indeed our handwriting, but we were coerced, we were minors, we were disqualified as witnesses — these are believed. But if there are witnesses that it is their handwriting, or if their handwriting appeared from another place, they are not believed.” So again, in the first case there is “the mouth that prohibited,” in the second case there are witnesses who remove the “mouth that prohibited.” And they themselves — since they are basically, well, not exactly the ones who prohibited, because we’re talking here about witnesses and not litigants — but they are the ones on whose basis the document gets its validity. They are the ones who gave the document its validity, so since that is the case, they can also take away that validity. Okay, that’s basically the point. This—
[Speaker D] They aren’t exactly litigants, because what are they testifying about? They’re testifying about their own signature. Right, and that has implications for the document, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They are the ones who created the validity of the document. Without them, the document would have no validity, because you need validation of documents. I’ll get to that in a moment; I’m just starting with the Mishnah, and afterward we’ll step back and give a more orderly introduction. Regarding the first ruling, the first ruling in the Mishnah is talking about the fact that when there is “the mouth that prohibited,” it helps the witnesses. Meaning, witnesses who come to disqualify themselves — if they have “the mouth that prohibited,” that will help. The assumption, of course, is that without “the mouth that prohibited” they cannot disqualify themselves. Right? That’s the assumption. Which is exactly what it says in the latter clause of the Mishnah. Right? That if this document was validated by other witnesses, and then these witnesses, the signatories, no longer have “the mouth that prohibited,” then in that situation they cannot disqualify themselves. Suppose two other witnesses come and say—
[Speaker C] We were there and we saw—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not “we were there and we saw.” We know the signatures of the witnesses — those are validating witnesses. We know the signatures of these witnesses, we know these are their signatures. And that’s not you? No, no, they’re other witnesses.
[Speaker B] The witnesses in the second part of the Mishnah come and testify that they know the signature, and that this signature is indeed theirs.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine. But they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited,” because the document is validated without them.
[Speaker B] You’re not saying this as some Torah pun?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so—
[Speaker E] We don’t rely on them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Once they no longer have “the mouth that prohibited,” the document is not validated on their basis. Right? We know the document is validated even without them. So since they are not the ones who validated the document, they don’t have the ability to invalidate it. When they do have “the mouth that prohibited,” that comes from the fact that the whole document is only worth something because we validated it. Right? So now we’re also saying that we were disqualified. That’s “the mouth that prohibited.” But if we didn’t validate it — there are witnesses who validated it — okay, now we come and say, true, the document bears our signatures, but we were disqualified; we’re not believed. Because we are not the ones who validated the document, we don’t have “the mouth that prohibited” to prohibit it or invalidate it. Okay? So there’s no clash here, it’s not a contradiction, it’s not that they are saying something that contradicts the validating witnesses. They too are saying that they signed the document. But since they are not the ones who—
[Speaker B] So the fact that they disqualify themselves doesn’t help us believe them—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they didn’t create the prohibition themselves; it exists even without them. We have other witnesses doing that. That’s always the structure in all the mishnayot, that was the structure. After all there are other witnesses — that’s where we started from — the question is what exactly.
[Speaker B] Let’s put it this way: at some point we understood that although the witnesses in the first clause of the Mishnah are witnesses on the document, the document’s witnesses, at a certain stage they receive a kind of status like litigants regarding their own credibility. Maybe. And that’s what — we’re kind of putting parentheses around this here, we’re now checking that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A discussion is taking place about their credibility. So whether they are litigants or not is a question.
[Speaker B] It’s a question, not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a simple one. We’ll still come back to that. But yes, a discussion about their credibility is taking place, correct.
[Speaker D] I think what has to be said is that the moment they are the only source of information, then they have “the mouth that prohibited.” But the moment there is someone else conveying—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The information, then they are no longer “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Speaker D] Yes. Information about what? Information that the document is valid? Yes. But the moment there is someone else providing that information, they are no longer “the mouth that prohibited.” Yes. Again, you have to understand — let’s say the document is not valid.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right.
[Speaker B] Because we didn’t sign it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, we signed it. We signed it as—
[Speaker B] As disqualified witnesses for one of the reasons the Mishnah lists. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s no contradiction between them and the other witnesses — that’s exactly the point. There’s just no “mouth that prohibited” once there are other witnesses. And that’s where we started all the previous lectures too. Meaning, when other witnesses come and say, you are indeed the witnesses signed on the document, then seemingly what’s the problem? They’re strengthening half the testimony, and that itself should disqualify them? The answer is yes. Why? Because the moment we are not the ones who gave the document its force, we don’t have the credibility to invalidate it. Our whole ability to invalidate it is only because the entire force of this document is built on us — “the mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted.” So the problem is not a contradiction between these witnesses and the testimony of the outside witnesses. There is no contradiction. On the contrary, they strengthen them. We say that we signed the document, and they also say that we signed the document. But since the court has another source giving force to the document, then we no longer have the ability to be believed in invalidating it, because its force does not come from us, it is not built on us. Clear? Yes. So now, that’s why when I told you what to learn, I said start from page 19 and not from here.
[Speaker B] What don’t they have? They don’t have the mouth that permits.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited,” and therefore they are not believed to permit.
[Speaker B] Why don’t they have “the mouth that prohibited”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they are not the ones who established the force of the document.
[Speaker B] There’s one word here—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s some redundancy here. If we established the force of the document, we can also destroy it.
[Speaker B] But if we didn’t establish the force of the document, we have no credibility to destroy it. And there’s some— there’s some analogy here, there’s something—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something here is rubbing me the wrong way. I see it and it bothers me. There’s something slightly inaccurate in the slot this is being placed into. It’s not really prohibition and permission; it’s giving force to a document and invalidating it. “The mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted” is an expression. It’s not that they prohibited something here and then permitted it. Rather, the one who prohibited is also trusted to permit. In this case the implication is: the one who gave force to the document is also trusted to take it away.
[Speaker B] After all, the whole force is built—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On me, and I’m telling you that this document is no good. Okay? So they gave it force — they gave force to the document by saying these are our signatures, and validation is needed for the document to be valid.
[Speaker B] But since we are the ones—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Who gave force to the document, then believe us when we tell you that this document is worthless. We were disqualified. And now that the force comes from other witnesses, it’s no longer we who gave force to the document, and therefore we also cannot invalidate it. Clear? This is really a subtle point, and that’s why we talked about it in previous lectures too, because there really is no contradiction between the outside witnesses and what we are saying.
[Speaker B] On the contrary, they strengthen us. We say that we signed the document—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And they too say that we signed the document.
[Speaker B] But since the court has another source—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Giving force to the document, then we don’t have the ability to be believed in invalidating it, because its force doesn’t come from us, it isn’t built on us. Clear? Yes. So that’s why, when I told you what to learn, I said start from page 19 and not from here. What don’t they have? They don’t have the mouth that permits. Yes, they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited,” and therefore they are not believed to permit. Why don’t they have “the mouth that prohibited”? Because they are not the ones who established the force of the document. There’s one word here, there are repetitions in this. If we established the force of the document, we can also destroy it. But if we didn’t establish the force of the document, we have no credibility to destroy it. And there’s some— there’s some comparison here, something that rubs me the wrong way; I see it and it bothers me. There’s something slightly inaccurate in the placement of the category. It’s not prohibition and permission; it’s giving force to the document and invalidating it. “The mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted” is an expression. It’s not that they prohibited something here and then permitted it. Rather, the one who prohibited is also trusted to permit. In this case the implication is: the one who gave force to the document is also trusted to take it away. After all, the whole force is built on me, and I’m telling you that this document is no good. Okay? So they gave force — no, they gave force to the document by saying these are our signatures, and validation is needed for the document to be valid. But since we are the ones who gave force to the document, believe us when we tell you that this document is worthless. We were disqualified. And since now the force comes from other witnesses, it is no longer we who gave force to the document, and therefore we also cannot invalidate it. Clear? This really is a subtle point, and that’s why we talked about it in previous lectures, because there really is no contradiction between the outside witnesses and what we are saying. On the contrary, they strengthen us. We say we signed the document, and they also say we signed the document. So why does the fact that they validate it destroy our credibility? The answer is: it doesn’t destroy our credibility; rather, it does not allow the mechanism that creates that credibility to be present. It may well be that we really were coerced, right, and it may well be that this whole story really should, in principle — quite right. They just do not have the credibility to claim it. And this is a halakhic mechanism that allows— and that raises the question why we need it at all. People come and say, we were disqualified. Right? Now we say they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited” because there are other witnesses saying that this document is validated. Fine. Okay. Without “the mouth that prohibited,” two witnesses come and say, we were disqualified — why don’t they have credibility? What’s stopping them? That’s the basic question. Do you understand me? After all, it’s obvious there’s no “mouth that prohibited,” because when there are other witnesses the force is not built on us, right. But why do you need “the mouth that prohibited”? Why—
[Speaker B] So go look for some other tool that would allow—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not some other tool. Why do we need tools at all? I come and tell you, folks, I was a disqualified witness. What’s the problem? So that’s it. I myself said I was a disqualified witness, done.
[Speaker B] No, but there is a problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe yes, maybe no, I don’t know, but who says?
[Speaker B] But because of the doubt—
[Speaker E] No, what doubt?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The burden of proof is on the one seeking to extract money. He comes with a document. He comes with a document to take money out. I tell you, folks, this document is defective, it’s invalid.
[Speaker E] A document is like two witnesses. Wait, and for that—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For that you need page 19. That’s why I told you to start from page 19, because pedagogically it’s more correct to start there. That gives the law before “the mouth that prohibited” and before everything else. First of all, what is the problem here? The problem of two against two, which is mentioned only there and not here. Now for that I’m stepping back. We read the Mishnah, okay? I’m stepping back, open the Gemara. Erase the board. Now I’m starting from the beginning. Okay? Now an introduction, first of all, to what a document is. The conceptual beginning, not the beginning of the passage — the didactic beginning of the beginning. Okay? Meaning I now want to present the matter in an orderly way; the Mishnah was just so we could see where we want to get. According to the basic Torah law, when there are two witnesses signed on a document, that is like two witnesses testifying in court. In the language of the Gemara: “Witnesses signed on a document are treated as though their testimony had been examined in court.” Even though there is no court here, and nobody examined them, and those witnesses may have died, may be in Australia, I don’t know exactly what. There is a document here with two signatures. From the standpoint of Jewish law, a document with two witness signatures is like having two witnesses here testifying that there was a loan. Okay? Now you have to understand that on the conceptual level this is problematic, because with witnesses there is a rule: “from their mouths and not from their writing.” Witnesses cannot testify in writing; they have to appear in court and testify. Therefore, for example, Maimonides argues that the law of documents is only rabbinic, a rabbinic enactment. Because at the Torah level written testimony is not valid. Even though this is written testimony, the Sages instituted that it be considered valid testimony, admissible testimony.
[Speaker C] Wait, but before you said this was from the Torah level?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I said according to the basic law. According to most opinions it is Torah-level. Maimonides’ view is that it is only rabbinic, because written testimony in principle is not accepted; it says “from their mouths and not from their writing.” Okay? But the Sages instituted that the law of documents should work. According to the other opinions, the law of documents is Torah-level, not rabbinic. And even in Maimonides there are all kinds of subtleties, but I’m not getting into that now. What is this trying to accomplish? Why did the Sages institute documents, or why does the Torah accept the law of documents despite the fact that in principle written testimony is not accepted? That’s obvious — this is an agreed law. Exactly. There’s something here that frees up the market. When I lend money to someone, if I had to keep in my pocket all the time the two witnesses who saw the loan, no one would ever lend money. No one would lend. What, am I crazy? The guy later will say there never was such a thing, right? If one lends to his fellow in the presence of witnesses, he need not be repaid only in the presence of witnesses, right? He could tell me there never was such a thing, he could say whatever he wants, and now I have to go searching for my friends. And those witnesses are not tied to my leg. If they go to Australia, if they die, if something happens to them, if they don’t feel like testifying, if they had a falling-out with me, I don’t know exactly what — my money is gone. So there’s no choice. Precisely for the sake of borrowers — and it’s always this upside-down thing — for the sake of borrowers, we give power to the lender to take the money from the borrowers. Meaning, we give the lender some tool such that if he produces it, he is exempt from bringing proof. He doesn’t need to bring the witnesses. Right, a great many enactments that seemingly strengthen the lender are really intended to protect the borrower. Because if you don’t strengthen the lender, the lender simply won’t lend; there won’t be loans. So in the end this is meant for the benefit of borrowers. And by the way, I think we’ve talked about this: many times people on the left — I mean the economic left now — don’t grasp that strengthening tycoons and capitalists often, not always and you need to know how and when, exactly — often in the end that’s what helps the weaker classes. Again, not always, and you have to examine it, but those slogans about supposedly helping the strong and not the weak sometimes—
[Speaker D] Socialist populists.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And in the end — look at that millionaire, and they’re even giving him benefits. Now you’re right, but if you don’t give him benefits, he won’t employ the thousand weak people he employs.
[Speaker D] So they won’t rent apartments because there won’t be apartment owners.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Very often the desire to help the weak ends up hurting the weak.
[Speaker B] When BDS hurt SodaStream, they—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hurt all the Arabs who work there. Exactly, SodaStream.
[Speaker B] Exactly. If there’s someone who can pay 2,500 shekels rent, but now they take away his apartment, then now it becomes worthwhile for the landlord to sell his small two-room apartment and turn it into a tower with five- or six-room apartments, but the person who had been renting—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Won’t find small apartments he can afford to rent.
[Speaker B] The person who had been renting won’t have anywhere to rent that place.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I’m saying: this is the edge of the law. Of course one has to take the weak into account, but one has to remember very well that harming the strong often trickles downward. The profits of the rich often don’t trickle downward, but the damages to the rich always trickle downward. And therefore one has to be careful about this.
[Speaker E] Have you ever heard on television about the money the British kingdom spends on the royal family? The royal house. A fortune. But it brings tourism.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The people want it so much, come on.
[Speaker E] Whatever the princess wears, afterwards the company gets rich because of it; they opened another factory to produce the clothes she wears.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, even more than that — those people there apparently love this nonsense. It’s hard to understand, but it’s international.
[Speaker E] People come from abroad to watch the changing of the guard.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it doesn’t start there. The public wants it, there’s some longing for this thing. I don’t really understand what’s going on there. Yes, we’re not—
[Speaker B] They want them, that’s true.
[Speaker E] No—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that sense I think we’re healthier, but that’s a different discussion. I think all these balloons ought to be popped; I don’t believe in them. But fine, I’m Israeli, so— Anyway, the basic principle is that they instituted — or, if you prefer, it’s Torah law; I’m saying according to Maimonides it’s an enactment — they instituted the matter of documents in order to allow a person to function without keeping the two witnesses attached to his legs. The same applies, by the way, to someone who sells a field. Someone who sells a field — then the buyer needs to keep the document as proof for the field, because otherwise how will we know it’s yours? Especially since the original possessor always has the upper hand and can always come and say, wait, what are you doing in my field? and deny that he sold it. So you somehow need— what are you going to do, keep the witnesses to the sale next to you all the time? No. Here, you have a document; let them sign it. From our standpoint, the document is as though their testimony had been examined in court.
[Speaker B] So why really wasn’t the more — let’s call it less dangerous — mechanism something like what is done today with land registration and the like, a land registry? Some sort of central registration.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The documents are the land registry.
[Speaker B] But the document sits in my hand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re living in a different era. In our time today there are computers, there’s a center, you can go to the registry office and check who owns what. There were always ledgers, let’s say. Ledgers where? To keep them in the registry in Jerusalem? You’re going to travel by wagon for two weeks to Jerusalem to check who owns the land? By the time you get back, I don’t know what will have happened to that land.
[Speaker B] It doesn’t work like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What does work? They did already — even then the local court kept records. There were local solutions. The whole problem is exactly the point: with land — with movable objects, if it’s in my possession, then I’m considered to have possession and therefore ownership over it, right? Anyone who comes to attack my claim has the burden of proof. But with land it doesn’t work, because the land stays where it is, it’s not “with me.” Therefore even if I’m sitting on the land, someone can come and say, wait, what are you doing here? You just entered this land; it’s mine. Therefore the original possessor there is considered the one in possession. And therefore with land, in every legal system and also in Jewish law, you have to find solutions for proving ownership of land — unlike movable property, where proof of ownership is that it’s in my house. Okay? And again, we talked about possession in ownership, that many times it’s a kind of solution like a document: not because I’m more truthful and he’s a liar, but because otherwise how would you ever prove ownership of movable objects? So I prove ownership by the fact that it’s with me. But with land I don’t have that option, and therefore they instituted the laws of documents — or again, instituted them, or it’s Torah law. There is a difference, by the way, between a loan document and a land document, because with a land document it is an act-of-acquisition document. We acquire the land through the document. After I acquired by means of the document, I keep the document with me as proof, and it becomes an evidentiary document. But at root the document served for the actual act of acquisition of land.
[Speaker C] How is that different from an object?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Pulling the object is the acquisition; with land it’s a document. Okay? So land is acquired by means of a document, and the buyer keeps the document as proof of the acquisition. So the document serves two roles: first, it transfers the land — it is one of the acts of acquisition; you can do it by taking possession, you can do it by document — and afterward the document becomes proof. In a loan, the document is an evidentiary document from the outset. All I do is hand you the document, and now you have proof that I owe you money. Clear? But it comes to solve the same problem — how to prove ownership or debt or whatever it may be in a relatively simple way. By the way, even with land, there are many later authorities (Acharonim) who say that the acquisitive function of the document is based on its function as proof. Because since the document is proof of ownership over the land, when I give someone a document for my land, that expresses firm intent to sell him the land; otherwise why would I give him proof to hold in his hand that the land is his? Am I crazy? It expresses the fact that I had firm intent, that I acknowledge the land as his, I resolved it in my mind, and therefore it became a valid act of acquisition. The transfer of the proof to the other party is itself the act of acquisition. Meaning, the two roles of the document — its acquisitive function and its evidentiary function — are really two sides of the same coin. Okay? But that’s just in general, just to understand what a document is at all.
[Speaker E] Can I ask something not related at all, but this just raised a question for me about witnesses to kiddushin? Is that similar to an act-of-acquisition document as opposed to the ones who sign the ketubah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A document of kiddushin is an act-of-acquisition document, not an evidentiary document. It’s the document that effects the kiddushin; it doesn’t prove that kiddushin took place.
[Speaker E] Right, and the ketubah is a document?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. The ketubah is a rabbinic enactment altogether. A document of kiddushin — no; today we don’t do that. Today kiddushin is done with a ring. But in principle a man can betroth by money, by document, or by intercourse. There are three ways to effect kiddushin, and one of them is by document.
[Speaker B] Meaning instead of the ring he gives a document.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a document of kiddushin. And that document is like acquisition by money — it is what effects the acquisition. The ketubah is something else; it’s mutual obligations. Okay, back to our topic. So the motivation for establishing that witnesses signed on a document are considered like two witnesses whose testimony was given in court is obvious. Right, we want to streamline commercial processes. But that creates problems. There is a price to these things. Why? Because two witnesses — after all, why according to the basic law do you need to bring two witnesses, and not “from their writing,” and so on? Because a document can be forged. If you bring me two witnesses, I see with my own eyes two people who come and can be examined. Yes, exactly. Can witnesses always lie? Lie — there’s no end to that. But in principle, no. In principle they have a presumption of fitness, and two witnesses come who are not connected, they are not interested parties, the two witnesses. If they are interested parties they are invalid. They are not interested parties and they come and testify, and I say: that is good proof. You have no better proof than that. Nothing is absolute; there can always be falsehood. But when a person comes and presents a document, he’s an interested party, he is the litigant. Who says he didn’t forge the document? So true, the motivation to give force to a document is very clear, but there are problems here — the person can forge it. What do we do? So the Sages made an additional enactment: a document must be validated. Until you validate the document, it is not valid. Again, that is not according to the basic Torah law; it is a rabbinic law. To validate the document means that witnesses come and say: we know these signatures, they are not forged.
[Speaker E] We know the people — wait, validation means witnesses, more witnesses on the witnesses? Wait, but the term “to validate” as you’re using it now means to identify the signatures.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Witnesses who identify the signatures. Okay? Those witnesses, by the way, can be the original witnesses who signed, who come and say yes, yes, these are our signatures—
[Speaker C] And then they are basically witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and later in the chapter there’s an entire passage about that: whether witnesses are testifying to the obligation written in the document or whether they are testifying about the signatures — but that’s a different discussion. And there can also be other witnesses who say: we know these two people, we know how they sign, and we are telling you these are the signatures; we know the signatures. Those are what are called validating witnesses. As distinct from the document’s witnesses. Sometimes, again, the document’s witnesses themselves also function as validating witnesses. But conceptually there are the document’s witnesses and there are the validating witnesses.
[Speaker F] So a person really needs four witnesses?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, hold on. Now what happens — what happens now, seemingly — wait, wait, seemingly—
[Speaker F] We’ve gone back—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right back to the same problem we wanted to solve.
[Speaker F] After all—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now you have to keep validating witnesses by your feet, so what have we gained? You’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. The answer is no. Why? Because validating witnesses can also be many other witnesses. It doesn’t have to be specifically those same two. So true, it’s not so simple, but it’s easier than always keeping the original witnesses. All I need to make sure of is that there are two people here who know their signatures. If they went to Australia, died, then their children can testify: we know our father’s signature, yes, that’s our father’s signature.
[Speaker B] And “know” means at what level?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Know — we can identify that these are the signatures.
[Speaker B] Let’s say today, for example, there might be software that shows it, so—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that today it’s more complicated; today you can forge lots of things. But in the past, a signature was very characteristic of each person, and people around him recognized it, or people who did business with him recognized it. And very often, by the way, validation was done by comparing signatures. If there is a document that has already been validated, and on that document there are the signatures of those same two witnesses, and I see on this document those same two witnesses, that itself counts as validation. That too is a way to validate it. So I’m saying, validation makes things more cumbersome, but it’s still better than requiring a person to keep track of the two original witnesses, because it gives you various options for validating it. It no longer has to be specifically those two original witnesses; it can be either the two original witnesses, or other witnesses, or comparison to another validated document, so it gives me more options. And that’s the balance the Sages found between the desire to make things easier for the lender and for the buyer of land, so he won’t have to preserve the original witnesses all the time, and the fact that we don’t want to let everyone forge documents and be believed. So now, after the enactment of document validation, which is a rabbinic enactment again—this is a rabbinic enactment—so the situation is like this. So everyone agrees that this is rabbinic? No, I said that’s one view—no, document validation, yes. The document itself, according to Maimonides himself, is also a rabbinic enactment, but that isn’t agreed upon. But document validation is a rabbinic enactment. And here too, by the way, there are some disputes, but I’m not getting into that right now, okay.
[Speaker D] Why do you need to compare their signature on this document to another validated document?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You don’t need to; that’s just one of the options for validating it.
[Speaker D] But no, if you find their signature—if it’s found somewhere else, it doesn’t matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No problem. As long as you know it’s theirs. How do you know it’s theirs? Maybe that one is forged too? So you need a validated document. The document you’re comparing to has to be validated, otherwise what have you accomplished? It could be a forgery. Right. Okay? So I’m saying there are many ways to validate, and that’s exactly meant to streamline the process, like we wanted from the outset with the whole matter of documents. What’s the situation right now? That’s the background. What is the legal situation right now? The legal situation right now is that if the lender comes and presents a document—now I’m going back to loan documents because that’s our topic—the lender comes and presents a document. He says: give me the money, I lent you money, here’s the document, give me the money. In principle, according to the basic law, he is believed. I can’t even claim, “I repaid,” unlike a case where I say I have a loan and I have witnesses for it, not a document.
[Speaker E] Because the document is in his possession?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hold on. I have witnesses and not a document. Against that, can one claim, “I repaid”?
[Speaker E] Yes. With witnesses, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How do you know? Where does that come from?
[Speaker E] Because you need a document at the time of the loan, but not at the time of repayment.
[Speaker F] Witnesses?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Because in Jewish law we rule: one who lends to another with witnesses—
[Speaker E] —does not need to be repaid in the presence of witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if witnesses come to testify that there was a loan, I can still claim, “I repaid,” and I don’t need to bring witnesses for that. I’m believed with the claim “I repaid.” That’s a dispute between Rav Pappa and Rav Pappi, right? And in practice we rule that one does not need to be repaid in the presence of witnesses. So if I have witnesses to the loan—so notice, the picture keeps developing, you need to stay focused—that means we’re now talking about a case where the lender brings, in his favor, not two witnesses that there was a loan, but a document. What happens in that situation? According to the basic law, you cannot claim, “I repaid.” Even though what’s the problem? There was a loan, right, I admit there was a loan, but I repaid. What’s the problem? After all, even if I bring witnesses in favor of the lender, I can still claim, “I repaid,” despite the fact that there are witnesses to the loan. What is different about a document? What is different about a document is: what is your document doing in my possession?
[Speaker B] Meaning the document is worth more than witnesses? Right? Why? Wait—because the document is like two witnesses plus something much stronger.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? But there’s simple logic here.
[Speaker E] Someone who repays the loan would have the document returned to him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, exactly, exactly. Since people who repay a loan take back the document, right, that’s obvious. If you didn’t take back the document, that is evidence that apparently you didn’t repay. So it’s not because a document is stronger than witnesses, weaker than witnesses—that’s not the point. The document is like witnesses. Rabbinic, Torah-level, practically speaking, it’s as if their testimony was investigated in court. As though there are two witnesses here. But with a document there is an additional point: the very fact that the document is in the lender’s possession proves that there was no repayment. Therefore, in principle, when I present a document against you—when I present a document against you—you cannot claim, “I repaid.” You must pay. You’re finished.
[Speaker B] Meaning, bring me an actual receipt—you don’t believe me that… exactly, here it’s exactly like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone who repays a debt that was given with a document—if, say, the lender says, “I can’t find the document, I lost it,” then what do you do? Like she says, right? Write me a receipt. Write me a receipt—a receipt is proof that you received the money. If I produce a receipt with the lender’s signature, or with two witnesses, even in his own handwriting that’s enough. Right. Exactly—it’s like witnesses to repayment, and then I’ll be believed. There is a way out. But you have to be careful.
[Speaker B] Does that receipt also need two witnesses?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In principle yes, but his own handwriting is probably sufficient in practice. The lender’s own handwriting. Now we’d have to discuss how you validate the lender’s handwriting. Okay. But in principle, I’m saying, there’s a solution for everything, as long as people act carefully. If you repay and the person says, “I lost the document,” then seemingly I would say, fine, then I’m not repaying you. That’s not fair—he lent you money, that’s not nice. So what do you do? You have to find a solution for him. What’s the solution? To write you a receipt. No problem. Once he writes a receipt, if in the future he produces the document, I’ll produce the receipt against him and everything is fine. Okay? Then I’m believed. So there’s a solution to everything. So all this is according to the basic law. But after the basic law there is a rabbinic enactment of document validation. The enactment of document validation. What does the enactment of document validation say? That if I now produce a document against you and sue you for the debt, I will not be believed until I validate the document—the signatures on the document. Okay? That is the meaning of the enactment of document validation.
[Speaker B] That’s why here it becomes complicated. Yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You see, there’s a very delicate balance here, but it’s also very logical. You need to solve the problems, pay certain prices, but not excessive prices. Okay.
[Speaker F] I didn’t understand. On the one hand, he presents a document and according to the basic law he is believed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to the basic law, yes. But the Sages enacted that he should not be believed without document validation.
[Speaker F] Okay. But they require him to bring additional witnesses for the signatures.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Sages—it’s a rabbinic enactment. According to the basic law, it ends here. Now there is a rabbinic enactment that says: true, but we require one more thing—bring witnesses who will validate the signatures on the document. After you bring witnesses for the signatures on the document, we return to the original law. Whoever presents a document—nothing will help, you can’t claim “I repaid,” you can’t claim anything. But there is a requirement that you validate the signatures on the document. That’s a rabbinic requirement. What does that requirement mean? That requirement means that today, after the enactment of document validation, if you produce a document against me, I can say, “I repaid.” I can also say, “That never happened.” Okay? In principle. If there is no validation. Right. And I demand from you: if you want to claim otherwise, bring witnesses who validate the document. But one point in what I said before was not precise. There’s a difference between if I claim, “I repaid,” and if I claim, “That never happened.” Why? Because if I claim, “I repaid,” then I’m admitting that the document is valid. Right? If I admit that the document is valid, then against a validated document I can’t claim, “I repaid.” Why didn’t I take it back? Exactly. I can’t claim, “I repaid.” If I claim, “That never happened,” then yes. Okay? Because I’m basically saying the document is forged, nothing ever happened, there was no loan, until you validate it. Validate the signatures on the document, and from the point of view of the court we will rule that the document is forged—not because that is actually so, but because that is the rabbinic enactment of document validation. Okay? The burden of proof is on you.
[Speaker C] But after the document is validated, there’s nothing you can do against it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It has no significance. You can’t do anything against it. But I’m saying: before the document is validated, the enactment of document validation says that despite the fact that there is a document against me, and according to the basic law a document is like two witnesses, I can claim, “That never happened.” I say the document is forged, there was no loan, you’re lying. Now, that doesn’t mean that the court believes me, of course, because according to the basic law I’m not believed. But there is an enactment of document validation that says: nothing doing—you will not be believed until you validate the signatures on the document. What happens if the borrower claims “paid” against an unvalidated document?
[Speaker E] It’s like “the mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted” for the lender.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Even before “the mouth that prohibited.” According to the basic law that won’t help him. Help whom? The borrower. Wait, before the migo. Why? Because when the borrower says “paid,” he is saying the document is not forged. There was a loan and there is a document. The document is valid. I’m only claiming it was paid. You can’t claim “paid” against a validated document, because I myself validated it. Right?
[Speaker E] So in principle the borrower, when he says, yes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —there was a loan, but I repaid, right? So he admits there was a loan and that the document is not forged; he only says, “I repaid,” right? But you can’t claim “paid” against a validated document, and he validated the document. Okay? Are you with me?
[Speaker F] Yes.
[Speaker E] Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again: after the enactment of document validation, okay? So the borrower—I produce a document against the borrower. The borrower can say, “That never happened, the document is forged, there was no loan.”
[Speaker F] But I already have—I brought more.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, I brought nothing. I produced a document, after the enactment of document validation. After the enactment of document validation, if I produced a document and did not bring validating witnesses—there is already an enactment that says you need to bring witnesses, but I didn’t bring them. Okay? What happens in such a case? The borrower can say the document is forged. There was no loan. That doesn’t mean we’ll believe him, by the way, because according to the basic law he isn’t believed. But this is his right; there is a rabbinic enactment, he can demand validating witnesses.
[Speaker F] Can he only say “That never happened”? Wait.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “That never happened,” if he says it, means he says: the document is forged, bring validating witnesses. Now I asked: what happens if he claims “paid”?
[Speaker F] Not “That never happened.” Then he’s in trouble. Seemingly, no.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because he himself validated the—
[Speaker C] —document.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And there are validating witnesses. Because he himself validates the document, since he admits the document is valid. Wait, wait, wait—step by step, give me a second. He himself admitted it; he himself validated the document, right? Because he said there was a loan and there was a document, but I repaid. Against a validated document you can’t claim “paid.” You validated the document. So seemingly the claim “paid” should not help against a document—even an unvalidated document. Why? Because by claiming “paid,” I myself admitted that the document is valid, that the document is genuine.
[Speaker B] But with an unvalidated document, there is “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait, one second, one second, give me a moment. Step by step, I’ll get there. I just want this to be clear, that’s why I’m… You’re all right about everything, I just want to do it step by step. Rather—like all of you are correctly saying, and I’m happy that you’re already so involved in the issue—it’s not true. Because when I say “paid,” then I have “the mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted.” Because who validated the document, thereby shot himself in the foot, and prevented himself from saying “paid”? I myself did. So “the mouth that prohibited is the mouth that permitted.” So if I can claim “That never happened” against the document, then by migo, by “the mouth that prohibited,” I can also claim “paid.” “Paid” by migo of “That never happened.” Here there is room for some discussion. Why? Because according to Tosafot it is indeed “the mouth that prohibited.” According to Rashi, no—it’s migo, not “the mouth that prohibited.” Because the person suing me knows the truth even without me. It’s a migo of “I could have said that never happened,” not a migo of “I could have remained silent.” Right? According to Rashi it is not “the mouth that prohibited.” It’s migo. Okay?
[Speaker C] He can’t stay silent because he has to answer the claim.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously. He has to say the document is forged—“That never happened.” Now here there is room to discuss whether according to Rashi I too can claim “paid” by migo of “That never happened.” Because it is only migo and not “the mouth that prohibited.” And the question is whether migo helps, because this is migo against witnesses. Because there are witnesses here—the document is witnesses. According to Tosafot it is “the mouth that prohibited.” Since if I had claimed “That never happened,” it would have been a claim that knocks out the plaintiff, even though the plaintiff knows to make the claim even without me, it is still “the mouth that prohibited.” So according to Tosafot it will probably work. According to Rashi, this is a major question: whether migo works in such a case, because seemingly it is migo against witnesses, and migo does not work in such a case. Okay? That’s the picture. Now I want to get to the passage on 19a, before we return to our passage. The Talmud on page 19—I started from there not because… even though it’s Talmud and not the Mishnah, because it is really the basic case that forms the background to our Mishnah. That’s why I say that pedagogically it’s more correct to start there. Let’s see. The Sages taught: two are signed on the document and they died. Exactly my nightmare came true, right? That’s exactly why we have the enactment of a document. That is exactly why there is the enactment of a document: the original witnesses—the originals may have died, gone to Australia, I can’t bring them. So here you have the enactment of a document: if they signed the document, the document has the status of two witnesses. But we know there is the enactment of document validation, right? So without validation it doesn’t help. And then two people from the marketplace came—what does “two from the marketplace” mean? Not those two who died, obviously, but others—and said: we know this is their handwriting, but they were coerced, they were minors, they were disqualified as witnesses. These are believed. The validating witnesses are believed. Okay? That they are believed regarding the validation—that’s not the question; these are ordinary validating witnesses. You don’t need “the mouth that prohibited” or anything for that, right? Also the second half—the credibility to invalidate the document is because of “the mouth that prohibited,” since they are the ones who gave force to the document, so they can also say that those witnesses were disqualified, or coerced, or whatever it may be.
[Speaker B] They invalidate the document—they invalidate the validity of the document.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay? So they validated the document—
[Speaker B] —and that is “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay? And if there are witnesses that this is their handwriting—whose handwriting? Of those who signed, those who died. Or if their handwriting emerges from another place, from a document that was challenged and then upheld in court—I already mentioned that this is the final method of validation I referred to earlier, comparison to another validated document—these are not believed. So the people who came regarding the document, the witnesses who came from the marketplace and say they were coerced or disqualified, are not believed. And we collect with it as with a fully valid document. Meaning, we collect with the document as with an excellent document. Good. That is what the Talmud says there. Okay. So the structure here too is exactly like the three Mishnayot we saw until now, right? What is the difference? In the two Mishnayot we saw until this point—wait, in the first two Mishnayot we saw, meaning 16 and 22 that we already saw in previous lessons, there we are dealing with a litigant. Right?
[Speaker B] There it’s plain “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, we’ll see in a moment. That also works. But I’m saying there we’re dealing with a litigant. The litigant prohibited himself, so he is also believed to permit. In the Mishnah on page 16 we’re dealing with the signing witnesses themselves. Right? They testify about themselves: we signed.
[Speaker D] Only in the second half.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, on page 18, sorry—in the Mishnah on page 18. In the Mishnah on page 18, the signing witnesses themselves come and say: we signed, but we were coerced, etc. So that is “the mouth that prohibited,” right? The “mouth that prohibited” here is not for a litigant, but for witnesses. Right? “The mouth that prohibited” applies to the witnesses, not to a litigant. That’s a novelty. We talked about migo for two witnesses, right? That’s something that needs to be dealt with. For now I’m just noting it. Okay? If there are witnesses that their handwriting comes from elsewhere, then of course they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited,” and that’s it. In the case on page 19, the case we just read, now there are already three groups of witnesses here. The witnesses who signed, right? The validating witnesses, and the witnesses that their handwriting emerges from elsewhere. Meaning, the validating witnesses—if there is a situation where the validation comes from elsewhere—and witnesses come to invalidate the witnesses who signed. Three groups of witnesses: the ones who signed, the ones who validated, and the ones who invalidated.
[Speaker F] Where do you see the third group?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those who came and said they were coerced, they were disqualified. If there are witnesses who come from elsewhere and say: this is their handwriting. In the latter clause.
[Speaker F] Oh, there were two from the marketplace who said it wasn’t—they were minors, coerced. Then two more came and said this is their handwriting.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, they didn’t say why they signed; they said this is their handwriting. They validated the signatures.
[Speaker F] They are believed. They’re not coming to say… does it matter who came first? No.
[Speaker D] We said that on page 18 these are the signing witnesses, and on page 19 they died.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These are different witnesses. Right. So that’s a difference. But still, both on page 18 and page 19 we’re dealing with “the mouth that prohibited” as applied to witnesses, not litigants. That’s a novelty. We said—do you remember?—we spoke about migo for two witnesses, that we do not say migo for two witnesses. Yet here “the mouth that prohibited” does seem to apply. So we’ll have to clarify that too—how that works. But that is what emerges. Okay?
[Speaker B] But isn’t that what I said before? Wait, wait. If the witnesses basically become, for a moment, litigants, and therefore it’s as if…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is what you said before, and I’m repeating what I answered before: that we still need to examine it. It’s true that the subject of the discussion is the credibility of the witnesses. The question is whether that turns them into litigants or not—we’ll discuss it. Okay?
[Speaker F] The third set of witnesses—are they testifying that this really is their signature, or are they testifying that they weren’t minors and weren’t coerced?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That it is the signature. They are only validating witnesses. Right. But that removes from them “the mouth that prohibited.” “The mouth that prohibited.” It removes from them “the mouth that prohibited.” They want to be believed in saying that the witnesses who signed—
[Speaker F] It’s a matter of whether they come first. No, no. We said “the mouth that prohibited” depends—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —on the disputes regarding “the mouth that prohibited,” perhaps whether it’s within the same utterance, or after the same utterance. That needs discussion. But in principle, the witnesses who come and say “this is their handwriting” don’t need to testify that they weren’t coerced and all that. The very fact that they validate the signatures removes “the mouth that prohibited” from the others who want to invalidate them. And consequently they… it still removes the credibility of those witnesses. Why? Because the credibility of that group is based on the fact that they are the ones who prohibited, they are the ones who gave force to the document, so they can also invalidate it. But if I have someone else who gave force to the document, then you can’t use that power—you are not “the mouth that prohibited,” and therefore you have no credibility to permit. Even though there is no contradiction between the witnesses, that’s exactly the paradox.
[Speaker F] Is it like a kind of blind judge?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not a blind judge—it’s very logical. Very logical. We spoke about “the mouth that prohibited”: what is it built on?
[Speaker F] It’s built—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —on the argument of “either way”: if you accept what I say, then accept all of it; if you don’t accept it, don’t accept any of it. But if there are primary witnesses, then what? We’re back to the discussions about “the mouth that prohibited”—whether one can come afterward or not. All the disputes we discussed there apply here too. Okay? It depends on those disputes. Okay, so up to this point the Talmud here is seemingly very similar to the Mishnah, very similar to the earlier Mishnayot, except that it is talking about witnesses—not like the first two Mishnayot, but yes, like the third Mishnah, the one we spoke about today at the beginning—but these are different witnesses, not the signing witnesses themselves. That is the difference between page 19 and page 18. Okay? In a moment we’ll see why that difference matters. So now the Talmud asks—and this is the important point—why? It is two against two. Wait, did we go back to 18? No, we’re continuing on 19. Why? It is two against two. What does that mean?
[Speaker D] The witnesses testifying about the signatures are one group. What are they testifying to?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The validating witnesses. First of all, what is this question referring to—the first clause or the last clause?
[Speaker D] The last clause, where there are additional witnesses.
[Speaker E] They could invalidate—two groups of witnesses. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And this comment, “it is two against two,” refers to the latter clause of the statement. In the latter clause—not of the Mishnah, of the statement; in the latter clause of the baraita it says that if there are witnesses that their handwriting emerges from another place, then the invalidating witnesses—let’s call them the signing witnesses, the validating witnesses, and the invalidating witnesses—do not have “the mouth that prohibited.” Okay? The invalidating witnesses need to testify and be believed by force of “the mouth that prohibited.” Without “the mouth that prohibited” they are not believed. Right? So if there are witnesses who testify to the signatures, then they are not believed because they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited.” Right? So the Talmud asks about that: why exactly are they not believed? And therefore what? Again—not believed, and therefore what? Therefore the document is valid and we collect with it as with a fully valid document, right? We collect with it like an excellent document, right? That is the assumption at the moment. The Talmud asks: why? Fine, so they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited,” but there are still two witnesses here saying that the witnesses on the document are disqualified witnesses. So what? I would say it’s not even two against two; there are two witnesses invalidating the document—throw it in the trash. It’s not two against two; the document is invalid, it should be torn up.
[Speaker E] But the document itself is two witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But these witnesses are disqualified—the witnesses here are telling me that.
[Speaker B] The invalidating witnesses—come on, look at the way they relate to it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I refuse to relate to that. Let’s leave it, because it depends on the disputes regarding “the mouth that prohibited,” whether it has to be before or after. Here what happens is what should happen according to the rules of “the mouth that prohibited.” Fine, let’s leave that for now.
[Speaker E] The witnesses signed on the document died? No—for our purposes, no. They are witnesses, right? And they are witnesses that basically this document is valid.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They don’t testify that the document is valid; because the document is valid, they testify about the loan.
[Speaker E] They testify about the loan, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now other witnesses come and say they were disqualified.
[Speaker E] But why do they nullify them? I mean, they nullify the document. No—think of it this way: there are two witnesses standing in court saying, we validate this document, and beside them stand two other witnesses saying, we invalidate it. So there is testimony against testimony here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so how is that…
[Speaker E] Wait, no, I’m asking a more basic question.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m asking why this is two against two. Seemingly there are two witnesses here invalidating the document, and that’s it—there aren’t two witnesses opposite them.
[Speaker E] There are—the validating witnesses, there are the originals.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The originals were disqualified—that is what I’m now saying, that they were disqualified.
[Speaker E] So it’s like conspiring witnesses? Conspiring witnesses?
[Speaker B] Obviously.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you think about it—if I…
[Speaker B] Why witnesses who came from the marketplace and also…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the witnesses who came from the marketplace didn’t say they weren’t disqualified; they only said, we recognize the signatures. But—
[Speaker E] There’s contradiction regarding disqualification—it’s more than contradiction of testimony.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Think about it. Say there are two witnesses, okay? They come and testify in court. Then two—wait a second—two other witnesses come and say: these two guys are a gang of robbers. So what? What is the law in that case?
[Speaker B] Then they will not—
[Speaker E] —be disqualified.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The witnesses are disqualified. Why? Because there are two witnesses against the first witnesses saying they are robbers, and they themselves cannot testify about themselves that they are not robbers.
[Speaker F] They are interested parties.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that case they are disqualified. That is the law—it’s like conspiring witnesses. Okay?
[Speaker F] And if two more witnesses come and testify about those two witnesses—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, then it will keep rolling. Right? Fine, then it will keep rolling. But I’m saying that right now they are disqualified, okay? Now that is the situation here. That is the situation here. Two witnesses come and say the witnesses who signed the document were disqualified. Why does the Talmud call this two against two? It’s not two against two. It’s two witnesses invalidating, and nobody is against them. Do you understand the question? The answer is: the law of a document. The law of a document says that once the signatures are validated, it becomes as though their testimony was investigated in court. There are standing here before us two valid witnesses shouting from the document: there was a loan. And two other witnesses come and say: not true, those witnesses are disqualified. If those witnesses were alive here before us, then the invalidating witnesses could invalidate them. But because those witnesses are not before us, and they cannot defend themselves or bring other witnesses or anything like that, the law of a document says that once the signatures are validated, this document is considered like two valid witnesses whose testimony was investigated in court. And now if two other witnesses testify that those witnesses are disqualified, this is two against two.
[Speaker B] But the two-against-two that the Talmud asks about—we said it’s on the latter clause, not the first clause of the baraita. Right? What is the latter clause? The third witnesses who arrived, right? The ones who say that indeed this is the signature.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And who stands opposite them?
[Speaker B] The second witnesses who came from the marketplace. No.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The second witnesses—are those the ones who validated the signatures, or the ones who said they were coerced?
[Speaker B] The ones who said, yes, these are the signatures, but…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The invalidating witnesses. Let’s call them the invalidators, the validators, and the signers. Okay? Exactly.
[Speaker B] The validators are the ones who said, we recognize the signatures, and the invalidators are—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —the ones who said they were coerced, disqualified, and so on. Okay?
[Speaker F] So now who are the two, and opposite which two are they standing here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The invalidators against the signers.
[Speaker E] The invalidators against the signers, not against the validators.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. No, no—the invalidators against the signers. So how did we get back to the first clause? No, no—you said the first ones are nullified. The signers are the first ones. You said they are nullified… not nullified, what are you talking about? Because the invalidators invalidated them. No—that comes only after there are two witnesses from the marketplace who validated their signatures. The latter clause. So in that situation the signatures are validated. What did we say about a document whose signatures are validated? Wait, wait—what did we say? It is considered as though their testimony was investigated in court. Legally speaking, leave the practical aside, legally this is considered as though there are two valid witnesses standing here testifying that there was a loan.
[Speaker B] That’s because of those who came from the marketplace and validated it. What difference does it make? Yes, yes—but what is going on here… on one side the validators, and those who want to invalidate, the ones doing “the mouth that prohibited and the mouth that permitted,” basically.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but not “the mouth that prohibited,” because they don’t have “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Speaker B] But at the same time as they validate the signature, they invalidate it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As far as I’m concerned they only invalidate. Forget the validators.
[Speaker B] The validators don’t matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again. Oy. I’m talking about the latter clause. In the latter clause there are three groups of witnesses: the signing group, the validating group, and the invalidating group. Okay? The Talmud says that such a case is two against two. Why? Because after the validating group arrives, the law of a document kicks in. The rule with a validated document is that it is considered as though their testimony was investigated in court. We see it legally—and this is a rabbinic enactment—but we see it legally as though there are two valid witnesses standing here testifying about the loan. And their testimony was examined in court. Meaning, they are valid witnesses. Right. Wait—now the invalidators come and say these witnesses are disqualified. So now we have two against two, two against two. That’s all. Good.
[Speaker B] But it sounds like the invalidators are against the validators.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. The invalidators are not saying the signatures are not validated. The invalidators agree that the signatures are validated. The invalidators claim that the signers are disqualified. And the validating witnesses brought back to life the witnesses who died—the signers. And now because it has been validated, the signing witnesses are as though they stand before us and say there was a loan, and they are considered valid witnesses whose testimony was investigated in court. By force of the validation—but they are not the validating witnesses. The validating witnesses only turned the signing witnesses into witnesses whose testimony was investigated in court.
[Speaker F] And also, why does it matter? In the end it’s two against two.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, why does it matter? I’m asking who are the two against which two. What do you mean, why does it matter?
[Speaker F] Because the Talmud says the two—the first two and the two signers and the two validators—they are the same side. Right. So either they’re both on that side or they’re just awakening them. Only the signers, right? That’s all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The validators bring the signers back to life, and the signers stand opposite the invalidators.
[Speaker F] You’re saying don’t think of it as four against two; it’s really two against two.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, because the validators are irrelevant. The validators are not testifying about the loan at all. They know nothing about what happened there. They only recognize the signatures, that’s all. So their role is not part of the discussion of the loan at all. They do testify about the loan—
[Speaker B] They only testify that the signing witnesses who signed were disqualified; they are not testifying about the loan itself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it doesn’t matter—what does that mean from their perspective? That if there is a document, the signing witnesses say: there is a document; the invalidating witnesses say: there is no document.
[Speaker D] They are challenging the loan.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. It’s not the loan, you’re right—it’s the document, not the loan. And the validating witnesses—the validators.
[Speaker F] The validating witnesses—are they not invalidating the invalidators?
[Speaker E] No!
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. They do not say that those witnesses were not disqualified. They don’t say that—no, they also say nothing about the signers.
[Speaker E] They don’t relate to them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They also don’t relate to the signers, not just to the invalidators. They only know how to identify.
[Speaker E] They don’t say the signers are valid.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They only say: we recognize their signatures, that’s all. They are not involved in the discussion at all. They are needed so that the document becomes like two witnesses—that’s all. After they did that job, they went home; we don’t even remember they were here. Now what we have is a document with two witnesses shouting out of it: there was a loan. We view them as valid witnesses whose testimony was investigated in court. Against them come two witnesses who say: very nice that you investigated them in court; we are telling you they are disqualified. So what? Then we have two against two. That is what the Talmud says. And therefore it is two against two, and not two against zero. That’s what I want to say. Therefore it is two against two only because of the law of a document. Understand, this is absurd. If there were two witnesses here standing here and saying there was a loan, and we would come and say you are disqualified, that would not be two against two. We would invalidate the first ones; the second ones would be believed.
[Speaker F] That would be contradiction—conspiring witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It would be like conspiring witnesses. So—
[Speaker F] So the fact that they’re dead comes out better?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because there is the law of a document. The rabbinic enactment of the law of a document. That enactment says: we want to free up the market. As far as we are concerned, if you bring a document, it is as if you brought two valid witnesses. That’s it. So after that enactment, when you present a validated document—and of course only if you validated the document, because the Sages require validation—we now have two witnesses saying there was a loan, two valid witnesses. And that is stronger than a situation where actual witnesses are standing here, because if in that case two witnesses came and said you are robbers or you are disqualified, they would win. This is an important point; you have to understand it. That is the meaning of the law of a document. That is why I prefaced with the law of a document. And of course that brought us back to our own passage as well, but we’ll see that in a moment. The Talmud says—I continue reading on page 19: “And why? It is two against two.” The Talmud says: Rav Sheshet said, this implies that contradiction is the beginning of conspiring testimony. It doesn’t matter—the Talmud offers some explanation and rejects it. I don’t want to get into that. Rather, Rav Nachman said, okay, continuing the Talmud: set two against two, and leave the money in the possession of its current owner. Just as in the case of the palm tree of Bar Shtaya. There was some Jew there, Bar Shtaya, doesn’t matter—some fool, sometimes sane and sometimes insane. There were two witnesses who said he sold it when he was sane, and two witnesses who said he sold it when he was insane. Sane means healthy, and insane—yes, exactly. Or insane. So that is two against two. What do you do in a case of two against two? You leave the money with its presumption. Okay? By the way, that itself is a dispute in the Talmud in tractate Yevamot on page 31: whether two against two is a Torah-level doubt or a rabbinic-level doubt. If two against two is a rabbinic-level doubt, that means that when you have two against two, you leave the money with its prior holder. If two against two is a Torah-level doubt, that means that when there are two against two, the presumption has no significance. Two against two erases the whole picture. It remains an unresolved doubt without presumptions. Okay? But it doesn’t matter—for our purposes, the Talmud here speaks according to the view that you do leave the money with its prior holder; that is, it rules like the opinion that two against two is a rabbinic-level doubt, and when there are two against two you leave the money with its current owner. What does that mean for us? What is Rav Nachman saying?
[Speaker D] There he can’t collect the… he’s the current possessor, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suddenly, who is the current possessor?
[Speaker D] No, that you do nothing. The borrower.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You want to extract money from me. If you had a validated document, you would extract it, but without that—as long as you haven’t validated the document—then I’m the possessor, right? What do you do in that case?
[Speaker E] Two against two, and therefore the document is invalidated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore the document is invalidated, right? When?
[Speaker E] In a validated document with conspiring witnesses? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—what do you mean conspiring witnesses? A validated document and the latter clause. Two witnesses validated it, and afterward two witnesses came and said that the signing witnesses were disqualified. So the Talmud asked: that’s two against two. Rav Nachman says: right, it’s two against two, and we leave the money with its prior holder. So I don’t understand—the baraita says not like that. It says that if witnesses came from elsewhere, then the document is believed, right? Yes. So how can that be? If it’s two against two, then what is Rav Nachman saying?
[Speaker E] What is Rav Nachman saying?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—that to leave the money with its current holder means that we do not collect with this document. Yet we understood that we do collect. We do take notice of it, and what Rav Nachman added is this: we thought that when two witnesses come and validate the document, then the document is valid and we collect with it. That is, we take the—Rav Nachman says: no. True, the document is not invalidated, unlike the first clause. In the first clause, when there is “the mouth that prohibited,” the document is invalidated, and we tear up the document. In the latter clause, the whole novelty is not that we collect with the document as with a fully valid document, but that the document is not invalidated. Rather, what? It remains unresolved; you cannot use it to extract the money, because the borrower is the current possessor. But what will the practical implication be? Rashi and Tosafot write here: seizure. The lender could seize the money. Meaning, it is considered a sort of balanced situation, both sides equal, neither side stronger than the other. The court cannot use the document and collect the money.
[Speaker B] Why is that different from tearing up the document?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? It isn’t different? Why is it different? Tearing up the document means you have no footing at all; your hand is on the bottom. The document is worthless. The lender—yes, the document is worthless, that’s it, we don’t believe you. Here we say: it remains unresolved, the document stays balanced and pending, hanging in the air. We don’t know what to say about it. So we as a court cannot use the document to extract money. Exactly. Now, if you seize it by force—now, you seized it by force.
[Speaker B] And they won’t let me sue you to get it back?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, maybe he could seize it back from you—that’s a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). But yes, right, you can’t really sue here.
[Speaker B] It’s a situation of: there’s nothing you can do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Jewish law recognizes possibilities of seizure in certain situations; maybe we’ll get into that, maybe not—that’s yet another issue that enters this page. This page is awful. So that’s another topic that enters this page, seizure. That’s why I’m doing it step by step, so that you’ll see the connection between all the pieces, okay? So now, that is what Rav Nachman says. For our purposes, what does this thing mean? Let’s now read the baraita according to the Talmud’s conclusion. The baraita basically says this: two signed on a document and died, and then two from the marketplace came and said, we know this is their handwriting, but they were coerced, they were minors, they were disqualified as witnesses—these are believed.
[Speaker E] What does “these are believed” mean? The second witnesses are believed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To invalidate by force of “the mouth that prohibited,” to invalidate the signers. Yes—themselves?
[Speaker E] No, not the witnesses themselves—the signatories. The document, not the witnesses themselves. The document and the signatories, yes. So then what do you do with the document? Wait, in which Mishnah? We’re on page 19, still there in the Talmud.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The document—
[Speaker B] Is invalid.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you do with it? Tear it up, throw it in the trash, that’s it—the document is invalidated. Right? It’s been proven that the document is invalid, so you throw it in the trash. In fact, you have to throw it in the trash, not just that you’re allowed to. Because otherwise they’ll use that document somewhere else; they’ll rely on the fact that no witnesses were found there to say that these witnesses are invalid. A court that accepts testimony like this takes the document by force from the lender and tears it up, so you won’t use it in the future and try to evade the disqualifying witnesses. Okay, so they tear up the document. What happens in the latter clause? So it says like this: “But if there are witnesses that this is their handwriting, or if their handwriting was established from elsewhere, from a document over which an objection had been raised and which was upheld in court, these are not believed.” The validating witnesses are not believed?
[Speaker D] The disqualifying witnesses are not believed. The disqualifying witnesses are not believed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what do you do? At first we thought, “these are not believed”—and what happens then? Two against two. We take the document and collect the money with it, right? It says, “and we collect with it as with a fully valid document.” The Talmud’s conclusion is not that. We don’t collect with the document; we just don’t tear it up. That’s the difference between the latter clause and the first clause. In the first clause, we tear up the document—it’s invalidated because we accepted the disqualifying testimony. In the latter clause, what it means is not that we collect with it as with a fully valid document, as we first thought, but that we don’t tear it up. It remains in suspense, hanging there. The practical implication is that if the lender seizes the money, then fine—he has that right; he isn’t considered a thief. We don’t tear it up, and we don’t use the document. That’s Rashi and Tosafot; by the way, Rashba there goes in a different direction—he doesn’t like taking it in the direction of seizure—but let’s leave that. Okay. What matters for our purposes is that what emerges from the Talmud on page 19 is that, in principle, a case like this is two against two. All right? Now let’s think for a moment about the first clause, still on page 19. Two witnesses come and say: these witnesses are known to us, these signatures are known to us, but they were invalid. There are no outside witnesses, yes? I’m talking about the first clause, so they have “the mouth that prohibited,” right? Since the mouth that prohibited—they’re believed. I asked earlier, when we read the passage on page 19, why do we need “the mouth that prohibited,” right? If they simply say these witnesses were invalid, then they disqualify them and that’s that. Why do we need “the mouth that prohibited”? What stands against them, such that they need “the mouth that prohibited” in order to be believed? But they’re validating the document and they say the document is invalid—but not they themselves; I’m talking about the first clause. The first clause, those who identify—
[Speaker G] The signature.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m talking about the first clause. There are no witnesses identifying the signatures.
[Speaker G] The witnesses who identify the signatures are the ones who disqualify them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the first clause, that’s “the mouth that prohibited.” Wait—the lender doesn’t just take some random signature. So what? Why do they need “the mouth that prohibited”? Why do they need “the mouth that prohibited”?
[Speaker B] Against what? We’re talking against the outside witnesses who came and said—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are no outside witnesses; there are only two sets of witnesses in the first clause.
[Speaker B] What’s the first clause? Two are signed on the document and died,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and then two came—
[Speaker B] from the marketplace and said: we knew that this was their handwriting, but they were under duress.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly.
[Speaker D] They have—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Speaker B] And therefore—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] they’re believed to disqualify the document, right? Why do we need “the mouth that prohibited”? After all, two witnesses say the document is invalid, and that’s it. Right—what stands against them? The validated document.
[Speaker B] It isn’t validated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is validated—they’re the ones saying, “we recognize the signatures.” And we said that a document, once validated, is considered like two witnesses.
[Speaker B] So then why do we need the latter clause at all—?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, wait, wait—before the latter clause, let’s first understand the first clause. A document, once validated, is considered like witnesses.
[Speaker G] That’s the two-against-two.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay? There you go. So seemingly we have two against two here. Right, just like the two-against-two in the latter clause, we have it here too. Except what? In the first clause, the disqualifying witnesses have “the mouth that prohibited,” and that’s why they’re believed. Okay? I asked why we need “the mouth that prohibited.” Normally, if there are just two witnesses disqualifying the document, they’re believed because they’re two witnesses. Why do I need to tie their credibility to the fact that they have “the mouth that prohibited”? Answer: because without “the mouth that prohibited,” they themselves have validated the document—they recognized the signatures. So in effect there is now a document here, and the law of documents says that means we have two witnesses here.
[Speaker B] “The mouth that prohibited” means something like: believe me that I’m telling the truth, because I disadvantaged myself by saying something that wasn’t in my favor. These witnesses—
[Speaker F] No, that’s a migo, what you’re saying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, this is also “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Speaker F] Not only that—it’s: I’m telling you information that you wouldn’t have known if not for me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right—self-incriminating information, information against me.
[Speaker F] Fine, and in this case, in this case the witnesses who came from the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] marketplace—that goes back to the question you asked at the beginning of the class. Right. That’s “the mouth that prohibited.” “The mouth that prohibited” means: we are in fact coming to invalidate the document, right? That’s our goal. But we’ve also shot ourselves in the foot, because we validated the document, and by doing that we made it valid. Right? And since we made it valid, we also have the power to invalidate it.
[Speaker B] But otherwise we also wouldn’t have been able to invalidate it. Meaning, it’s not—wait—it’s to… our goal is to invalidate the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] document.
[Speaker E] And that’s the problem—
[Speaker B] silence can’t say anything. No, because if I stay silent, I don’t gain what I wanted to gain. What I wanted to gain now is that it won’t be validated.
[Speaker E] There are no other witnesses to validate it besides them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Obviously, there are no other witnesses. If I hadn’t validated the document, the document would have been worth nothing.
[Speaker E] I give it the force, and then I take it away.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so basically—
[Speaker E] But why are they giving the document validation?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they say, “we recognize—”
[Speaker B] “the signatures.”
[Speaker E] Because they’re truthful people. But is there another pair?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now I’m already confused. No, no, there’s no other pair. In the first clause there are only the witnesses signed on the document, and they died, and then two other witnesses come. There is only one set of witnesses now. They recognize—the signatures—and they both validate the document and disqualify it. Exactly. But if the court—you already said this, you talked about it, but wait—
[Speaker E] I wasn’t listening, but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] if they tear it up—we said—
[Speaker F] that they tear up the document, and then suddenly the additional witnesses come—that we’ll talk about later, why get tangled up now. So again, another story.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What difference does it make now?
[Speaker F] After all, you said that the times—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, so that’s the latter clause. But why get tangled up? I’m talking about the first clause now. So regarding the first clause, I asked why we need “the mouth that prohibited.” There are two witnesses claiming something; why do two witnesses need reinforcement in order for us to accept what they say? The answer is: exactly the whole discussion we just had about the latter clause now sheds light on the first clause. Because in the first clause, why do we need “the mouth that prohibited”? Because without it, there would be a validated document here—we validated the document. And against that, we say the witnesses were invalid. So we have a two-against-two. And only because we are the two who validated the document are we also the two who can invalidate it; and in that situation, since we have “the mouth that prohibited,” we are believed. And on that Tosafot says—and that’s what we’re going to discuss—you see from here that “the mouth that prohibited” works even against witnesses. It’s so strong that it works even against witnesses. Because basically there are two witnesses standing against them.
[Speaker F] What do you mean, against witnesses? Who are the witnesses standing against them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The witnesses themselves? The validated witnesses—no, the signatories. Again: the witnesses signed on the document. Only we validated them and thereby turned them into witnesses.
[Speaker F] So really it’s “the mouth that permitted” versus “the mouth that prohibited.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. “The mouth that permitted” turned the document into two witnesses. Now the witnesses signed on the document are two witnesses standing against us. And now we come to invalidate them, right? So in principle this is a case of two against two, exactly like in the latter clause. The difference is that in the first clause we have “the mouth that prohibited” on our side, which the latter clause does not. This “mouth that prohibited” helps us overcome witnesses standing against us. That means that “the mouth that prohibited” works against witnesses. Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes. This is a very important point; it’s the foundation for the whole discussion on page 18. What’s unclear here? Never mind. I’ll say it again—look, this is very important, because all our calculations afterward will be built on this. It’s very important to me that you keep your head with everything we’ve discussed now. We’re moving slowly, really just through the Talmud itself; I haven’t added anything of my own. So it’s important to me that this be very firmly in your minds.
[Speaker B] Just one small sentence—it’s kind of reversed, and here too reversed works.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s why it doesn’t matter; the logic is the same logic. The point is this: we reached the conclusion from the discussion of the latter clause that once the document is validated, it’s as if two witnesses are standing here in court—not just two witnesses, but two witnesses whose validity was established in court—saying that there was a loan, right?
[Speaker E] You meant the validation? No—the signature is validated through the validation process.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Invalid witnesses against the invalid witnesses—
[Speaker E] The original witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now in the first clause too there is a two-against-two—you have to understand that. In the first clause too there is a two-against-two, because after we validate the signatures, the two witnesses signed on the document rise from the grave and testify here: there was a loan. Except that we say: you were invalid. So it’s a two-against-two exactly like in the latter clause. Why, in the first clause, are they believed?
[Speaker B] They’re not testifying about the same thing. Why not? Because the witnesses who rose from the grave are testifying that there was a—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] loan, and we are witnesses that they are credible witnesses.
[Speaker B] They’re not testifying about the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Put it on airplane mode for once.
[Speaker B] They’re not testifying about the same thing. The two-against-two here are not one against the other over the loan itself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The witnesses who came in the first clause are not testifying about the same thing. The witnesses who rose from the grave are considered like witnesses whose testimony was examined in court; except that, from our perspective, we have two witnesses about them that they are valid witnesses. And now two witnesses come and say that they are invalid witnesses.
[Speaker B] And that’s like witnesses—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] fictitiously, on their own—in the role of validators against the… right. No, it’s as if the signatories are considered valid witnesses. You can describe it as though there are two other witnesses here testifying that the signatories are valid witnesses. We, the court, are essentially considered witnesses; we are witnesses that they are valid witnesses. That’s what validation does. Therefore we have a two-against-two situation.
[Speaker B] Not just a question—the ones who came in the first clause, who were in the role of validating the document, the ones from the marketplace, said that the signatures were validated.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now the court says: the halakhah establishes that if the signatures on the document were validated, it is as though we are witnesses that those witnesses are also valid, not only that the signatures are authenticated. That is not what those witnesses said, the validating witnesses. And now those same witnesses come and say: no, no, they are invalid witnesses. So they are standing, as it were, against the court, or against some fictitious witnesses that the halakhah posits in favor of the witnesses who rose from the grave. Therefore this is a case of two against two. Now in the first clause, since the disqualifying witnesses have “the mouth that prohibited,” they are believed against the signed witnesses. Therefore you need “the mouth that prohibited” in order to believe them, because facing them there are two other witnesses. Otherwise you wouldn’t need “the mouth that prohibited”: there are two witnesses here—why do I believe them? Because they’re two witnesses. In the first clause there still isn’t—
[Speaker E] that group. This isn’t two as witnesses; it’s the same testimony through two testimonies by the same witnesses, the same pair of witnesses. There’s only one.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll try—one last sentence—
[Speaker E] I didn’t understand.
[Speaker B] What’s the conclusion, what are you saying?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a document signed by two witnesses.
[Speaker E] The blue is darker. It’ll be a little hard with the drawings.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is a document—no, this is very important to me because all our later calculations will be built on this. It’s extremely important to me; I don’t mind devoting the whole class to it. Never mind. Two witnesses signed here. Now two witnesses come and validate them. Are you talking about the first clause?
[Speaker E] Yes. By the way, it’s true in both; it’s—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter; it’s true in both cases, right. Two witnesses come and validate them. It could be the same people; that doesn’t matter, but right now we’re dealing with the case where they’re different witnesses. Are they dead in the story? Yes, that’s why I’m saying that right now we’re dealing with the case where they’re different witnesses. They validate them. What happens in that case? In that case we have a document saying there was a loan, right? The testimony has been accepted.
[Speaker E] The document says there was a loan.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now only after the validation does the document say that; before validation there is no document. But more than that, we have two more witnesses saying: the witnesses on the document are valid. Who are those two?
[Speaker C] The halakhah.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the halakhah. The halakhah says that from our point of view these are witnesses whose testimony was examined in court, even though that didn’t actually happen. The halakhah says that not only do we believe their testimony, we also believe that they are valid witnesses. Now a set of witnesses arrives and attacks them and says: they are invalid. It attacks those witnesses. So what is the situation now? Two against two. There are two witnesses whom the halakhah says are valid witnesses. The halakhah stands against the disqualifying witnesses. Not the disqualifying witnesses themselves, as I said before—that was a necessary correction—but rather the halakhah, which says that the signed witnesses are valid, stands against the witnesses who come to disqualify them. Therefore it is two against two.
[Speaker F] So yes, these against those?
[Speaker B] But no—who are “these”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “These” are a fiction. There are no such witnesses.
[Speaker B] The halakhah is the accuser and in their place, these. This fiction succeeds in setting up, when they validate them, that in the case on page 19 this is basically—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those witnesses are real witnesses; they came here on four legs. Here too, four legs arrived. But those people—there are no such people; we invented them. The claim is: the halakhah invented them. The moment you validated the signatures, halakhah sees the document as a valid document; you can collect with it. More than that, halakhah also sees it as if there are two witnesses testifying that these witnesses are valid.
[Speaker F] Why does it need to see it “as if”? Weren’t there really such witnesses?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there were no witnesses who said they were valid. Where were there witnesses who said they were valid? There aren’t any. No witnesses said they were valid. Which witnesses said they were valid?
[Speaker F] You look at them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—once validation was carried out, it’s as if… The validation doesn’t say they are valid. Validation only says that we identify the signatures. There was no testimony at all that they are valid.
[Speaker E] But are they disqualifying their signatures?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Those. Yes. But those are validating. Who are “those”? The halakhah. The halakhah says: the law of a document is that when a validated document comes before us, from our point of view two witnesses are standing here, as if we had two other witnesses about them testifying that they are valid witnesses.
[Speaker F] And that’s the two-against-two, and then—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The two-against-two is on the question whether these witnesses are invalid or valid. Those are the two of “we are witnesses”—we are witnesses that they are valid—against the two who disqualify them. That is the two-against-two. Now, this exists both in the first clause and in the latter clause.
[Speaker B] Except that in the first clause, what’s the difference? The validators and the disqualifiers—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the validators and the disqualifiers are the same set. Therefore those witnesses have “the mouth that prohibited” against those witnesses.
[Speaker B] And therefore they are believed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the latter clause there is no “mouth that prohibited”; it’s two against two. In the first clause what happens? Do we collect from the document? Right? In the first clause—sorry—we do not collect from the document; in the first clause we tear up the document. Right? We believe the disqualifying witnesses, the document is invalidated, we tear it up and throw it in the trash. In the latter clause, what do we do? Two against two—we leave it hanging; if he seizes, then he seizes. Okay? That’s it; those are the laws.
[Speaker B] In the first clause there is “the mouth that—”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] prohibited, and we don’t relate to the two-against-two? I don’t understand the relation that there is… “The mouth that prohibited” decides in favor of the two who disqualify. There is a two-against-two here.
[Speaker B] Why is that stronger?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because “the mouth that prohibited” is on their side, and the others don’t have it. We created you.
[Speaker F] But suppose they were real?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it would be two against two, and there would be no “mouth that prohibited” here at all.
[Speaker F] Why do we have to say that we created them, instead of saying these are the signatories?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the signatories… If the signed witnesses were standing here saying there was a loan, and I brought two witnesses saying they’re invalid, those signed witnesses would lose. Because there are no witnesses about them that they are valid; there is only their own testimony. But now that we are judging them, they can’t say “we are valid,” they can’t testify about themselves. So if two witnesses come and say “you are invalid,” they would indeed disqualify them. The law of documents says not so. If these two witnesses are not standing before us on four legs, but instead there is a validated document here, that is stronger. Because a validated document means, from our point of view, as if two witnesses also came and testified that these testifying witnesses are valid. Not only that there are these two witnesses testifying about the loan. And then if two witnesses come and disqualify them, it is two against two. Very important point, I’m telling you—it’s important that you understand this very well. This is the meaning of the law of documents. Don’t look at it—
[Speaker F] as if only the signed witnesses—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. It’s not only that the signed witnesses rose from the grave; we also invented two more witnesses who never even existed—not only that they died, but people who never were in the first place. And those two witnesses testify that these witnesses, whom we killed and then revived, are also valid witnesses. And therefore a two-against-two is created here. And that is the reason why, in the first clause, the disqualifying witnesses need “the mouth that prohibited” in order to be believed. Because without “the mouth that prohibited,” here too it would have been a case of two against two.
[Speaker C] I asked—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] why do we need “the mouth that prohibited”? After all, there are two witnesses saying this is invalid—what stands against them? What stands against them is the document. Right? And therefore it is a case of two against two. And this is a very big novelty, because what emerges from here—and I mentioned that Tosafot we learned about “the mouth that prohibited”—what emerges from here is that “the mouth that prohibited” works even against witnesses. What evidence works against witnesses? No evidence. A migo against witnesses is completely null and void. “The mouth that prohibited” works against witnesses. How do I know that? If you remember, when there is a two-against-two and two of them have a migo—does that help? No. Why not? Because two-against-two is like one hundred against one hundred. That migo would be like two witnesses, at most. So here you’d have two witnesses against four, right? Now here I could have said the same thing. There’s a two-against-two here, and these have “the mouth that prohibited,” right? Yes. Now that “mouth that prohibited” joins the two witnesses, and against them there are two other witnesses. So how does “the mouth that prohibited” decide the issue? Is it stronger than witnesses? After all, witnesses are the strongest evidence there is. Yes—the answer is yes. Why? Because once there is “the mouth that prohibited,” then—I’m getting ahead of myself—but once there is “the mouth that prohibited,” it apparently neutralizes those witnesses; it doesn’t merely add to these witnesses. It says: you too don’t exist, because you exist by our power. We do not see you as really being two witnesses.
[Speaker B] So really, after there is “the mouth that prohibited,” we no longer have a “two.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s why you need “the mouth that prohibited,” because without it this would be a case of two against two. We created—
[Speaker B] these fictitious ones, and now we erase them?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because when there is “the mouth that prohibited,” the fictitious witnesses never come into being. Because the fictitious witnesses were created by me, and I’m not creating witnesses against myself. Okay? This is actually very logical; there’s nothing strange about it—you just need to keep your head straight with all the… It’s a simple foundation once you understand it. But it’s the basis of everything. If we don’t understand this, we’ll get tangled up at every step later on. So it’s very important to me that this be clear. Okay, now I see it’s already 1:15, but now we have to start reading our passage. And in our passage, the complication that comes up is that in our case, the ones validating the document are the signed witnesses themselves. So now instead of three sets of witnesses, we only have one: the signatories. They are also the validators and also the disqualifiers. The three sets of witnesses basically collapse into four legs—two people. Okay? That’s what’s happening. Now we have to see what exactly the difference is. So what? What difference should that make, seemingly? We could just repeat the whole process we did now on page 19. Why should I care?
[Speaker B] You put them into boxes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, physically they’re the same people, but conceptually there are two of this kind and two of that kind and two of that kind. We’re already used to fictitious witnesses, so what’s the problem? So here too they’re fictitious—it doesn’t matter. But there are three positions here. Why should I care that those three positions are occupied by the same two people? That is the question troubling us in our passage.
[Speaker E] Because if I split—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] it into two parts of testimony, then it becomes “he goes back and says differently.” That pulls us in—and therefore… That’s why I said that page 19 conceptually precedes page 18. Now we have to understand what “he goes back and says differently” is doing here, and “a person does not make himself wicked,” and all those things that exist only in our passage, not on page 19. That’s why page 19 is a purer, simpler passage. Our passage already has additional components layered on top of the components of page 19. Okay? Now where are you up to with the preparation sheet?
[Speaker B] We’re before the rest of the laws.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You need to review this. You need to review it. I think it’s very important—go over it again. Go over it again; maybe I’ll send you an additional supplement so you’ll have something more. But review the first page, because now it seems to me that things should be much clearer. Okay. Whose is this? Chakhizi’s?
[Speaker E] Ah. We’ll review it. Yes. We’ll need to.
[Speaker B] Thank you very much.