Ketubot Chapter 2, Lesson 17
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- The state of the learning and the goals for the lecture
- Summary of Sanhedrin: Rav Yosef and Rava on testimony that renders the witness wicked
- The definition of “wicked” and the presumption of fitness until proven otherwise
- Halakhic loops and Rav Shimon Shkop: a condition in a bill of divorce, “on condition that you do not marry so-and-so”
- Comparison to Rav Yosef: testimony that collapses itself
- Makkot: witnesses related to the guarantor, and whether we split the testimony
- The Rosh in Makkot: Rashi versus Raavad and the nature of testimony
- The Rosh’s question: why not apply splitting the statement as in Sanhedrin and Yevamot
- The Rosh’s answer: the core testimony versus a side detail, and the unity of the document
- The Raavad’s approach: “testimony partially invalidated is entirely invalidated,” and the exception for testimony about oneself
- Proof from the passage “so-and-so had relations with my wife” and defining one’s wife as like one’s own body
- A conceptual implication: other relatives and sexual abuse within a family
- Splitting the statement versus splitting credibility, and the connection to “her husband died”
- Tosafot on the passage “we were coerced”: question and answers about splitting
- Planned continuation
Summary
General Overview
The lecture continues the topic of splitting a statement through a summary of the dispute between Rav Yosef and Rava in Sanhedrin about testimony in which the witness renders himself wicked, and sharpens the point that Rav Yosef does not disqualify the person from future testimony, but rather disqualifies the current testimony by force of the principle “by your own words, you are wicked,” because testimony that validates itself and thereby invalidates itself cannot be accepted. From there an analogy is brought from Rav Shimon Shkop about “any legal effect such that if it takes effect, it does not take effect—then it does not take effect,” in order to stop halakhic loops. After that, the discussion moves to Makkot and the Rosh, who asks why we do not apply splitting in the case of witnesses related to the guarantor, and presents different answers from the Rosh and the Raavad, who distinguish between testimony about oneself and disqualification through family relation. From there develops a distinction between splitting a statement and splitting credibility, along with its implications for Tosafot on the passage “we were coerced.”
The state of the learning and the goals for the lecture
The lecture opens by clarifying where the class is holding in terms of the passages, noting that the passage in Makkot, the Rosh, and Rav Shimon Shkop are not easy, and setting the goal of reviewing Sanhedrin as an introduction and reaching Makkot and the Rosh, with the intention of continuing next time to Rav Shimon and finishing the topic. The lecture ends with the note that there will be no class on Tuesday because of the Tenth of Tevet, and with a possible mention of an event marking the completion of the Daf Yomi cycle.
Summary of Sanhedrin: Rav Yosef and Rava on testimony that renders the witness wicked
Rav Yosef and Rava disagree in a case where a witness testifies about someone else and, in the course of his words, also renders himself wicked, such as “so-and-so sodomized me willingly.” Rav Yosef disqualifies the testimony, while Rava accepts the testimony about the other person and does not accept the part about himself, on the basis of “a person is related to himself” and “a person does not render himself wicked.” The lecture emphasizes that a person becomes disqualified from testimony as wicked only after a religious court determines his legal status, so his own confession before the court does not immediately turn him into a disqualified witness. Rav Yosef is explained accordingly: he does not disqualify the person, but the testimony itself, because testimony that can be accepted only by accepting from it that the witness himself is wicked—and then his testimony cannot be accepted—is testimony that cannot be accepted. The person may remain fit to testify the next day if no ruling was issued about him in court.
The definition of “wicked” and the presumption of fitness until proven otherwise
A wicked person is defined as someone who knowingly committed an offense punishable by lashes or death, and nowadays there are no lashes or executions in practice because there is no religious court functioning in that way, but the status of disqualification from testimony still depends on legal process. The presumption is that everyone is fit to testify unless someone seeking to disqualify them proves otherwise, and the burden of proof rests on the one trying to remove someone from their presumed status, not on the person presumed fit.
Halakhic loops and Rav Shimon Shkop: a condition in a bill of divorce, “on condition that you do not marry so-and-so”
A case is brought from Tosafot in Gittin about a conditional bill of divorce: “on condition that you do not marry so-and-so.” There, a later marriage to that so-and-so creates a loop: if her marriage to him takes effect, it retroactively nullifies the divorce, and then she is a married woman, so the marriage to him cannot take effect. Rav Shimon Shkop establishes the principle: “anything such that if it takes effect then it does not take effect—then it does not take effect,” and therefore the marriage to that man does not take effect, the loop is stopped, and she remains divorced from the first husband and not married to the third. The point is stressed that this is not an “issur” in the sense of a commandment or prohibition, but a halakhic inability for the legal effect to come into being. Additional examples of loops are mentioned, along with the suggestion that they can be resolved by means of this principle.
Comparison to Rav Yosef: testimony that collapses itself
Rav Shimon Shkop’s principle is presented as parallel to the idea attributed in the lecture to Rav Yosef, according to which testimony whose acceptance leads to the conclusion that invalidates it cannot be accepted. The distinction is formulated by saying that the invalidation is of the testimony, not of the person—just as in the case of the condition in the bill of divorce there is no defect in the act of betrothal itself, but rather an inability of the legal effect to arise.
Makkot: witnesses related to the guarantor, and whether we split the testimony
In Makkot, a case is brought of witnesses related to the guarantor in a loan. Rav Pappa holds that they may testify about the borrower and lender, who are not their relatives, while Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua rejects this, because if the borrower has no money the lender will go after the guarantor, and therefore the testimony also concerns the guarantor. The question is discussed why we do not invalidate only the part concerning the guarantor and validate the part concerning the borrower and lender, in a way that would mean there is no possibility of collecting from the guarantor in the absence of valid testimony regarding him.
The Rosh in Makkot: Rashi versus Raavad and the nature of testimony
The Rosh brings Rashi’s explanation that the case deals with witnesses to the loan, and compares it to the Jerusalem Talmud about a document written for two recipients where the witnesses are valid for one and invalid for the other, and because of the unity of the document, the testimony is invalidated even regarding the valid part. The Raavad explains that the case concerns witnesses to repayment in the context of the claim “I repaid you,” and there too the testimony affects the guarantor when the borrower cannot pay, so the question of invalidation arises.
The Rosh’s question: why not apply splitting the statement as in Sanhedrin and Yevamot
The Rosh asks that if in Sanhedrin we apply splitting the statement in “so-and-so sodomized him willingly,” and in Bava Batra / Sanhedrin 25 in “so-and-so lent me money at interest,” so that we believe one part and cancel another, and likewise in Yevamot 25b when a witness says “I killed her husband,” where we believe him about the husband’s death but not about the murder, then here too we should seemingly split and believe him with regard to the borrower but not with regard to the guarantor’s liability.
The Rosh’s answer: the core testimony versus a side detail, and the unity of the document
The Rosh brings an answer according to which, in the Sanhedrin cases, the core testimony is to convict or disqualify the offender, and the part in which the witness attributes the act to himself is “something else,” not part of the core testimony, so one can preserve the main part and reject the secondary part. By contrast, in the loan document one cannot obligate the borrower without the document also establishing the possibility of obligating the guarantor, and since the testimony is viewed as one testimony about one document, if it is not accepted with regard to the guarantor it is not accepted with regard to the borrower either.
The Raavad’s approach: “testimony partially invalidated is entirely invalidated,” and the exception for testimony about oneself
The Raavad establishes a rule that any testimony partially invalidated due to disqualification through family relation is entirely invalidated, and he brings proof from the law that if “one of them is found to be related or otherwise disqualified,” the entire group of witnesses is disqualified. To explain the passages of splitting, the Raavad distinguishes between disqualification through family relation and testimony about oneself: testimony about oneself is not “invalid testimony,” but rather “not testimony at all.” Therefore this is not a case of “partially invalidated,” but of erasing a part that never enters the category of testimony in the first place, and the remaining part can be accepted.
Proof from the passage “so-and-so had relations with my wife” and defining one’s wife as like one’s own body
A passage in Sanhedrin is brought in which, in the case “so-and-so had relations with my wife,” they join to execute him but not to execute her, and the Talmud’s initial assumption is that splitting applies only when a person speaks about himself and not with regard to his wife. The conclusion is that one’s wife is like one’s own body, and therefore here too it is “not testimony at all” with regard to his wife. Then the passage “so-and-so had relations with my ox” is brought, where the Talmud concludes that we do not say “a person is related to his property,” thereby emphasizing the distinction between testimony about oneself or what is like one’s own body, and financial interest, which does not create the same mechanism.
A conceptual implication: other relatives and sexual abuse within a family
The difference between the Rosh and the Raavad is presented as having implications for the question of what the law would be in testimony such as “so-and-so had relations with my relative.” According to the Raavad, there is no splitting in the case of relatives, and therefore the entire testimony would be invalidated; according to the Rosh, there is room to accept the testimony about the offender and reject the part concerning the relative. It is also said that even when formal testimony is not sufficient for halakhic punishments, it is still possible to act through other means such as distancing and sanctions.
Splitting the statement versus splitting credibility, and the connection to “her husband died”
A distinction is presented between “splitting the statement,” as a linguistic cutting of one statement into two parts, and “splitting credibility,” as accepting the same testimony for one result but not for another. An example is brought from testimony that “her husband died,” where one witness is enough to permit the woman to remarry, but that same testimony is not enough to transfer inheritance to heirs, because inheritance requires two witnesses. This is defined as splitting the results of the same statement, not splitting the statement itself.
Tosafot on the passage “we were coerced”: question and answers about splitting
Tosafot’s question is brought: if the law follows Rava, who applies splitting the statement, then in the case of witnesses who say “we were coerced because of money,” it would seem possible to believe the words “we were coerced” and cut off the words “because of money,” leaving “because of threat to life.” Tosafot answers that validation of documents is rabbinic, and therefore we do not split in order to invalidate a document; also, coercion because of threat to life is uncommon, so we cannot say that on our own; and furthermore, “because of money or because of threat to life” is an explanation of “we were coerced,” and therefore it cannot be split off. Tosafot adds that here the core testimony immediately makes them wicked if they do not explain themselves, unlike cases such as “I killed him” or “so-and-so sodomized him,” where the core testimony is directed toward convicting someone else or permitting a woman to remarry, and therefore splitting applies there.
Planned continuation
The lecture states that next time they will continue to Rav Shimon on splitting and will send more material to complete the picture, with the goal of finishing the passage in one more meeting, and it is noted that there will be no class on Tuesday because of the Tenth of Tevet.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, last time we started the matter of splitting the statement. In terms of the page, where are you holding? Did you see the passage in Makkot, the Rosh, Rav—
[Speaker B] Did you start or see Shimon? These are not easy things.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, just to see it—we’ll go over it, but just, okay. So that’s more or less what I want us to get through today, I hope that’ll work out. Basically, last time we went through the Sanhedrin passage; I’ll just summarize it, the part we saw, basically—there’s more continuation. There’s a dispute between Rav Yosef and Rava: what happens when a witness comes and, in his testimony, also renders himself wicked? Meaning, he testifies about someone else, but within his words he also renders himself wicked. So according to Rav Yosef, the testimony is disqualified, because if you render yourself wicked, a wicked person is disqualified from testifying, and that’s it. You just have to note one point that maybe we’ll come back to later: for a person to be disqualified from testimony, there has to be a ruling of a religious court establishing that he is disqualified from testimony. Meaning, it’s not enough that he committed an offense, and it’s not even enough that there are witnesses to it; it has to go through legal process in which the religious court determines that the person is disqualified from testimony. Only then is he disqualified from testifying. That didn’t happen here, because here a person comes and tells us that he did such-and-such. Fine—even if you did it, that still doesn’t disqualify you from testimony.
[Speaker C] No, maybe that happened and they’re just not giving us the shortened version of the process?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, that’s clearly not the case, because he’s speaking now—now the testimony is being given. About what?
[Speaker C] He says, “So-and-so sodomized me willingly.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So he says that he himself was sodomized willingly. In that statement, this is the first time the matter comes to the knowledge of the religious court. There was no testimony about him beforehand that he did this, and then the religious court ruled and said, fine, this man is disqualified from testimony. Now it became known to the court. And as long as the court has not ruled that he is wicked, he is not disqualified from testimony—that’s the law. Okay. So nevertheless, Rav Yosef says—and in principle Rava agrees, at least regarding himself—we do not accept his testimony. Why not? So he doesn’t render himself wicked—but that’s according to Rava. But Rav Yosef—Rav Yosef says that since a person does render himself wicked, right? Therefore we basically accept his testimony that he was sodomized, and therefore he is disqualified from testifying about the sodomizer. Right. But of course—why is he disqualified from testifying? He’s a disqualified witness because he’s wicked. But on the other hand, if we—this leads to a leniency, because—but on the other hand if—
[Speaker D] he—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] is wicked, then how do we accept his testimony about himself? And Rav Yosef doesn’t accept the rule that a relative is not trusted to testify even about himself?
[Speaker D] No, his testimony about himself that he’s wicked, because that’s what convicts him, so to speak.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—how do we accept his testimony about himself for two reasons? First, he’s wicked; second—actually three reasons. First, he’s wicked. Second, he is related to himself, because a person is related to himself. Third, part of his testimony you didn’t accept—the part dealing with the sodomizer. So why do you choose to accept the part about himself, like “the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permits”—remember that? So why do you accept half the testimony and not the other half? What?
[Speaker D] If he didn’t sodomize him, then he wasn’t sodomized. Exactly. But how is “a person is related to himself” specifically proof that something isn’t true?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person is related to himself, so he can’t testify about himself—so why are we accepting his testimony about himself that he’s wicked? That’s what Rava claims. I’m asking what Rav Yosef does with that. So with Rav Yosef there are apparently three problems here. One problem: the man is wicked, okay? Sorry, let me say it again: his testimony should be disqualified for three reasons. First, he is testifying about himself. Second, if he is wicked, then even his testimony about himself you can’t accept—you can’t accept any of his testimony. Third, after all, you didn’t accept part of his testimony, the testimony about the sodomizer. So why do you accept the testimony about himself? Disqualify all of it—that’s obviously an extension of point two. Okay. And now I’ll add a fourth point: after all, he wasn’t convicted in religious court, so why disqualify his testimony? A witness becomes disqualified only after testimony was given about him in court and he was disqualified. That didn’t happen to him. It’s not enough that he committed the act, and even if it’s clear to us that he did it—not just that we’re uncertain whether he did it or not. Even then, the disqualification has to be carried out in religious court. Without that, he is not disqualified from testimony. In general, a person’s legal status is always determined by a religious court. Reality by itself cannot change a person’s status. A person’s status changes through a legal act, so that has to be done through a court ruling. Okay. So there are lots of problems with Rav Yosef’s claim. In principle, yes.
[Speaker E] No, there are those who say this isn’t testimony at all, so maybe no disqualification is needed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s those who say we split the statement. Whoever says we split it says that testimony about oneself isn’t testimony at all, and therefore we split the utterance—that’s the Ritva, we’ll get to it. But right now I’m talking within Rav Yosef. It seems to me that the solution to all these difficulties is—pay close attention—Rav Yosef is not really disqualifying the person. For example, if this man comes tomorrow morning to testify differently in another court—different testimony, doesn’t matter what—what would we say to him? Yesterday it became clear that you’re wicked; you can’t testify, you’re disqualified from testimony? Of course not.
[Speaker B] As long as it hasn’t been ruled that he—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] did the act, they accepted the testimony, and disqualified him from testifying—he’s not wicked. Meaning, he is not disqualified from testimony as a wicked person.
[Speaker B] He disqualifies the testimony, not the person.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And Rav Yosef is basically not really saying, “We accept his testimony about himself that he is wicked.” We say to him the famous phrase: by your own words, you are wicked. After all, according to your own account, you are wicked—so what, you want us to accept your testimony? Not that we are ruling that you are wicked; in fact we don’t accept anything from your testimony. You’re just saying, okay, don’t accept it about me, but accept it about the borrower. Which is basically what Rava does, right? He doesn’t accept the testimony about himself, but accepts the testimony about the borrower. Rav Yosef says no, I don’t agree with what Rava does. Why not? Because by your own words, you are wicked. Either way—if we accept your testimony, it disqualifies itself. You’re sawing off the branch you yourself are sitting on. Because if we accept your testimony, the result will be that you are wicked, and therefore the testimony cannot be accepted. Testimony like that cannot be accepted. Not that we rule that he is wicked. If he comes tomorrow to testify about something else, we will accept him. He’ll be a valid witness. Okay? But here we disqualify it—we disqualify the testimony and not him. That’s a good definition, what Yossi said earlier. Meaning, we disqualify the testimony, not him. Because testimony that itself saws off the branch it is sitting on is not accepted. By your own words, you are wicked. According to your own position, you want us to accept your words? If we accepted your words, you would come out wicked, and then we couldn’t accept your words. So leave us alone. We’re not willing to hear this.
[Speaker C] Wait, and if he really disqualifies him as a person, then tomorrow if he comes to testify in another matter?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. A wicked person is disqualified from testimony; he can’t testify about anything. That’s it. Until he repents. Until he repents—if he repents—and then a religious court declares that he has returned to valid status. Yosef, there’s a whole section in the Shulchan Arukh about how that’s done, and who has to do what.
[Speaker B] Is there something there about invalidating the betrothal? What? There’s the issue where they try to free chained women by invalidating the marriage retroactively—is that really part of this approach?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. If they found a witness who is wicked, then you can disqualify the witness, and then the marriage is invalidated. But here I’m saying it’s unrelated. I’m speaking generally. Meaning, the moment a person has not gone through the legal process, he is not disqualified. Meaning, the person himself is not disqualified. All you can do is disqualify the testimony. Why? Because this testimony itself says, “I myself am disqualified.” That we reject. So testimony like that we can’t accept, whichever way you look at it. The person himself remains valid. Tomorrow morning, when he comes to testify, he is valid. In principle, the person is also valid even for this testimony—we didn’t disqualify the person. The testimony we can’t accept because this testimony itself tells us, “I’m disqualified.” Fine, so what do you want me to do with that?
[Speaker D] What’s the definition of a wicked person?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A wicked person, in the halakhic definition, is someone who violated a prohibition punishable by lashes or death. Knowingly? Yes. There’s no lashes or death without intent.
[Speaker E] No, he committed the offense knowingly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if it wasn’t knowingly, there are no lashes and no death. Meaning, it has to be someone liable to lashes or death. Now again, today—for example nowadays—there are no lashes or death penalties because we don’t have a religious court in that sense. Doesn’t matter. But if there is testimony against him that he is wicked, then he is disqualified from testimony.
[Speaker D] Let’s say, just as an example—someone who keeps the Sabbath. If someone drove on the Sabbath, then obviously everyone knows that that’s—and say at home he chopped the salad really, really fine, does that mean he’s not Sabbath-observant?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Depends. If he did it knowingly, certainly. What’s forbidden is forbidden. What do you mean?
[Speaker D] How can they even rely on someone’s testimony at all?
[Speaker C] Who knows who’s wicked and who isn’t?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The opposite. That’s the whole idea. We rely on everyone’s testimony until it’s proven that someone is wicked, and then we don’t accept his testimony. The opposite. The burden of proof rests on the one who comes to disqualify. The presumption is that everyone is valid until disqualified. So the one trying to remove someone from his status—that’s where the burden of proof lies. Okay, so Rav Yosef basically—and this is an important point—Rav Yosef basically is not claiming that the person is disqualified from testimony. Rav Yosef is claiming: by your own words, you are wicked. And if according to your own account you are wicked, then leave it. This reminds me now—I’m recalling a story—Rav Shimon Shkop writes, there’s a Tosafot in Gittin, Tosafot asks what happens if someone divorces a woman on condition that she not marry so-and-so. He makes a condition, a condition. He says the condition in the bill of divorce is: “You are divorced provided that you do not marry so-and-so,” “on condition that you do not marry so-and-so.” Fine. Now she marries someone else, has children, then later divorces and marries so-and-so. And the very moment she married so-and-so—then the bill of divorce is undone retroactively, meaning the divorce is nullified.
[Speaker B] So the condition nullifies the divorce, meaning—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] she is not divorced from the first man. And if she’s not divorced from the first man, then her children are mamzerim, because they are the children of a married woman. Right? But on the other hand, if she is still married to the first man, then her marriage to so-and-so also has no legal force, no validity, because she is a married woman. So then she’s not married to so-and-so, so she didn’t violate the condition of the bill of divorce. It’s a kind of paradox. Okay?
[Speaker C] It’s not a paradox. Why? Why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She’s not married to the other one, but still—
[Speaker C] No, not to so-and-so either. Because she’s still married. Not to so-and-so either. If she’s married to the first—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] she can’t also marry so-and-so. She’s married to the first. So can she marry—she wasn’t married to the second and also not to the third.
[Speaker C] But doesn’t the second marriage close that loop?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the condition can be a condition forever. Yes. No, but that’s not logical. Not forever—for a long time. Forever would be a lack of severance, and then the condition is void.
[Speaker B] No, but this state of affairs isn’t logical.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the condition. Whoever controls the act can also impose conditions on it. That’s the rule.
[Speaker B] But aren’t there enactments of the religious court about what counts as a reasonable condition and what doesn’t? No?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Enactments of the religious court—it could be that the court would refuse to arrange the divorce for policy reasons. But from a halakhic standpoint, a person can impose conditions on a divorce. Meaning, he can impose conditions on almost anything he does. On nearly anything he does.
[Speaker B] Right—“on condition that you fly in the air.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, fine, but that’s something not in her power to fulfill, so that’s something else.
[Speaker B] I once heard some juicy story like that. What? I heard some juicy story like that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes—no, these conditions are very problematic things. There’s a whole discussion in the Talmud. If the condition is everlasting, then no—the condition doesn’t work, because severance has to reach some point at which there is a break. But that point doesn’t have to be at the moment the bill of divorce is given. It can also be ten years later, as long as there is some point where it ends.
[Speaker B] The question is whether it doesn’t end the moment she marries someone else? No, no, no.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because basically now her connection remains—
[Speaker B] I understand, but no. No.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Her connection to the former husband always remains in the sense that if she violates the condition, she reverts to being his wife.
[Speaker B] Right, there, you see—she reverted to being—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Interesting question. I think once we discussed this in one of the previous years. Is there a prohibition against marrying so-and-so? On her. On her.
[Speaker B] If he makes that a condition on her—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] on her, right?
[Speaker C] What? If he stipulated it, so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He stipulated it. So what if he stipulated it? That’s her problem. No, because then there’s a—I don’t know. He can’t impose conditions on her. He’s not the Holy One, blessed be He. Meaning, he imposes a condition. Suppose he imposed a condition not not to marry so-and-so, but not to drink wine. It’s the same thing in principle. If she drinks wine, then the condition is nullified, the divorce is nullified. Okay? Is there any prohibition on her to drink wine? No. Why not?
[Speaker C] Because she can drink wine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She can drink, but it will nullify the divorce. Right?
[Speaker C] But if she’s married to someone else—
[Speaker D] then—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that creates this because of the loop, but in principle, the fact that a person imposes a condition does not create a prohibition.
[Speaker D] It doesn’t create a prohibition because in principle she can’t be married to two men at the same time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She—
[Speaker E] becomes—
[Speaker D] not available to one of them, and that’s forbidden.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because of the loop? Of course. She can’t be married to two men, because that also doesn’t happen. If she’s married to so-and-so, then she’s not married to the other one. If she’s married to the other one, she’s not married to so-and-so. She isn’t married to both. It’s only a loop. The loop alone is the problem here.
[Speaker B] But that does create—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a kind of prohibition. What? So that’s it—ultimately, in my view, this is a dispute among Amoraim in tractate Nedarim. But in principle, because in the middle she has children who are mamzerim.
[Speaker E] It’s not drinking wine; it’s not the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m talking about drinking wine now. I’m talking about drinking wine. A condition about drinking wine. What’s the problem? Because she married someone else and has children by him. And then—wait, wait—and afterward she drank wine. The moment she drank wine, the divorce from the first husband was nullified, so the children from the second husband are mamzerim. I’m talking about a condition on drinking wine, not on marrying so-and-so. It doesn’t matter. In the middle there are mamzer children. Right. So I’m saying that this is only an interpersonal offense. Meaning, an offense of not turning the children into mamzerim and making them miserable. But there is no prohibition in the sense that she somehow turned all her past relations into illicit relations because she was really a married woman. There is no prohibition against turning relations that already happened into illicit relations. What happened happened.
[Speaker B] Fine, also when someone validates a divorce they do this. The question is whether at the moment she drinks the wine she has to go back and remarry the first husband? Not remarry. She is married.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She doesn’t have to go back—
[Speaker B] and remarry.
[Speaker C] She also—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] can’t go back and live with him. That’s another issue. She is married, isn’t she?
[Speaker C] No, she didn’t marry someone else.
[Speaker B] She didn’t marry someone else.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] She didn’t marry someone else. She was always the wife of the first one; she didn’t marry another. But that’s like saying there’s a prohibition against producing mamzerim. I’m saying there is no prohibition against producing mamzerim.
[Speaker C] No, aside from turning them—
[Speaker E] and the interpersonal issue.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There is no prohibition against producing mamzerim.
[Speaker C] There is a prohibition on illicit relations. The result of illicit relations is mamzerut, right? I’m saying that here there may be an interpersonal prohibition—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] against turning the children into mamzerim, so she shouldn’t drink wine so as not to harm the children. But there is no prohibition from the standpoint of the laws of marriage. Meaning, she may do what she wants. So what if the husband imposed conditions? The husband doesn’t determine for her what she is allowed and not allowed to do. She can decide what she wants to do. The husband imposes conditions, and there are consequences to what she does. But that doesn’t impose a prohibition of adultery if she marries so-and-so. What? No, so that’s why I said, let’s talk about drinking wine, not marrying so-and-so. That’s not important. In any case, let’s leave that aside for now. So there is some sort of problem there, and the question is: what do we do in such a situation? It’s a loop. So what do we do? She went and married so-and-so. What’s the law now? Are the children mamzerim or not? Is she married to the first, married to the third? To whom is she married? If she’s married to the first then not to the third, but if she’s not married to the third then she’s not married to the first because she divorced him. Right? So she’s married to the third. Ah—and if she’s married to the third—
[Speaker B] It’s really the liar paradox.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly, that’s the process. Ah, okay. So Rav Shimon Shkop says there something very similar to what I told you here. He says this: there’s a principle— in the yeshivot they say it like this—anything such that if it takes effect, then it does not take effect, then it does not take effect. If there is something such that, if you apply it, it itself would uproot the very legal effect, then such a legal effect cannot be applied. Now regarding the person who divorced his wife on condition that—say he divorced the woman on condition that she not marry so-and-so. So when she marries so-and-so, what will those very marriage acts do? They will nullify the first divorce. Yes. But if the first divorce is nullified, then she is the wife of the first man, so the marriage to so-and-so is invalid. Meaning, this is an act such that if it takes effect, it uproots the effect of itself. Such an act cannot take effect. And therefore, says Rav Shimon Shkop, the loop stops here. She tries to marry so-and-so—those marriages will not take effect. Period. In other words, she remains divorced from the first and not married to the third. Why? Two—
[Speaker B] things. That sounds contradictory.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two things. She remains divorced from the first because the condition was not nullified, right? She didn’t violate the condition because she did not marry the third. She is not married to the third. If she is not married to the third, then she didn’t violate the condition. Right? So in effect she didn’t violate the condition, so the divorce is valid. So it comes out that she is not the wife of the first. But she is also not the wife of the third, even though the whole reason why she is not the wife of the third is because she is the wife of the first. And if she is the wife of the third, then she is—
[Speaker C] not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the wife of the first.
[Speaker B] No, Rav Shimon says the result is that she is neither the wife of the first nor of the third. She is only the divorcee of the second.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And also of the first. And that means that the condition the first husband imposed did turn this into a prohibition, because it prohibited her from marrying the third. It didn’t prohibit her. It just won’t take effect.
[Speaker B] No, he didn’t say it was prohibited.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary, she violated no prohibition. She can have sexual relations with the third as much as she wants. There just won’t be any betrothal there. She’s an unmarried woman having relations with him. A rabbinic prohibition. But this is not adultery. She’s an unmarried woman having relations with him and nothing happens. There will be no marriage there. Even if he betroths her, it won’t help at all. It won’t take effect.
[Speaker B] Now I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I once collected—I have quite a few examples of this principle. What do you mean, “how so”?
[Speaker B] What? Why can’t the third one betroth her?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if she marries the third—
[Speaker B] the second so-and-so is the condition.
[Speaker C] No, the third is the condition. So-and-so is the condition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The middle one is just there to enrich the story. There are mamzerim in the middle and a whole mess.
[Speaker C] It doesn’t matter—what—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] what matters is the first and the third for the logic of the story.
[Speaker B] Oh, she married Yossi and then Chaim David?
[Speaker C] No, she married—she divorced Avraham, and he told her, “on condition that you don’t marry David.” Then in the end she married Yossi and divorced him, and now she wants to marry David. But if she marries David, then she wasn’t divorced. The mythological ex.
[Speaker B] You’re not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone experienced in this kind of situation doesn’t use Avraham and David. Reuven, Shimon, and Levi, or Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov. Then you know who’s first, second, and third. Otherwise you stop and say, wait, who’s David? Was he the first one?
[Speaker C] Messiah only comes from David. Messiah son of Yosef and Messiah son of David. Right, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Avraham. Okay, anyway, for our purposes—why am I bringing this up? First of all, because it’s amusing. But why am I bringing it? Because it’s the same principle I’m saying here. What Rav Shimon basically says is this: if you go and marry the third one, assuming that this legal effect of betrothal takes effect, then it will be uprooted, right? The operation of that legal effect will uproot itself. Because if the betrothal takes effect, then you have nullified the condition, you remain betrothed to the first, and therefore the betrothal to the third doesn’t take hold. A legal effect that uproots itself—you cannot apply it. That’s what Rav Shimon Shkop says. And then the loop stops. You don’t need to keep spinning in the loop forever. That’s how you stop the loop.
[Speaker C] The loop stops by saying it’s prohibited for her—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The moment in the loop where we arrive—not that it’s prohibited for her.
[Speaker D] Not that it’s prohibited for her to marry him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t take effect. She can’t. Not that it’s prohibited. Nothing is prohibited. Okay. She can do whatever she wants.
[Speaker D] No marriage-effect creates anything there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. No legal effect of betrothal is created.
[Speaker D] She can’t marry so-and-so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. And not because it’s prohibited. Third point: she can’t. Not that it’s prohibited. There’s no possibility. It just won’t work for her.
[Speaker E] Not that it’s prohibited from Heaven, but rather—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] logically. She can’t. There is no prohibition. No prohibition whatsoever. She can marry him, stand under the wedding canopy, receive a ring—she has violated no prohibition. She just won’t be married. Okay? Why am I bringing this? Because I’m saying the same thing here.
[Speaker E] Can you repeat the sentence you said?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Any legal effect such that if it takes effect, it doesn’t take effect—then it doesn’t take effect. Good, yes. That’s how it goes. Truthfully that phrasing is a bit clumsy, but in yeshivot that’s the language—clumsy language, yes. Any legal effect such that if it takes effect, it doesn’t take effect—if it uproots itself, yes, if it takes effect then it doesn’t—
[Speaker B] take effect, then it doesn’t take effect.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, you can’t apply it. It’s impossible. In normal Hebrew, not yeshiva-bochur Hebrew, you should say: any legal effect that uproots itself cannot be applied. That’s a more rational and understandable sentence. Okay, it’s just worth knowing the terminology.
[Speaker D] Is there another example—
[Speaker E] of this?
[Speaker C] Any—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] legal effect whose application would uproot itself—
[Speaker C] cannot be applied.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Applied with a hard “h,” yes. Good for you.
[Speaker C] Do you—
[Speaker E] have another example of such a thing?
[Speaker C] There are many, many examples of this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I wrote a book on conflicts and loops in Talmudic thought, and one chapter is devoted to this principle of Rav Shimon—maybe even more than one chapter, maybe a whole section, I don’t remember anymore—with dozens of examples. Wow, lots of examples. There are plenty. All sorts of witnesses who come and testify about the sanctification of the month, and then they turn out to have reached bar mitzvah age—
[Speaker B] If they sanctify—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the month, then it turns out they were minors, and then if they were minors they can’t testify about sanctifying the month—but if you cancel it, then they’re adults. In short, there are a million such cases. The Minchat Chinukh of course has dozens of examples of this, and I think that all these loops that the later authorities struggle with can be solved through Rav Shimon’s idea; that’s why I wrote about it. And the idea Rav Shimon writes on that Tosafot in Gittin can resolve ten examples that the later authorities debate what to do with and never really escape from the loops.
[Speaker B] And do people accept his view? What? Do they accept his view? Meaning, did he solve this issue?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean “accept”? I think so. Everyone thinks what he thinks, I don’t know. I think so. Yes, there’s—what do I know? There’s an inevitable result that one doesn’t want. Do you know that? In the laws of the Sabbath there’s—well, anyway, let’s open a little parenthesis. It’s interesting. An inevitable result that one doesn’t want. Okay, so when I perform an act of labor without intending it, I am exempt—or it may even be permitted, depending on whose view. So when I, for example, drag a bench, okay? And a furrow is made in the ground. Now making a furrow in the ground is prohibited; it’s a violation under the category of plowing. But I’m dragging the bench in order to move it from place to place, not in order to make a furrow. That’s called unintentional. Unintentional is exempt. But what happens if the furrow will definitely be made? I know for certain that if I drag it, then it’s an inevitable result. Right?
[Speaker D] It comes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Arukh, Rabbi Natan of Rome, one of the very early medieval authorities, writes that if a person does not want the result, then he is nevertheless exempt. An inevitable result that he does not want—he is exempt. He doesn’t want the furrow in the ground. Is that a source for a loop? Yes. It’s a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim); not everyone agrees with this either. It’s not agreed upon. It’s a dispute among the medieval authorities. An inevitable result that he does not want is also exempt. Okay? Now they ask about this: what do you mean? Who wants to become liable to stoning on the Sabbath? Once you did something with an inevitable result, it turns out that you’re liable to stoning, right? So obviously you don’t want that inevitable result, because you’ll be stoned. So every inevitable result is something you do not want. There is no inevitable result that you do want. It depends on the phrase “he wants it.” Why?
[Speaker C] Because it means I’m not comfortable with the action.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What do I gain? Seemingly, if I’m not comfortable with it, that’s a sign that it isn’t attributed to me.
[Speaker C] I gain nothing, because I’ll die, they’ll stone me. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can say a lot of things. Right. That actually doesn’t… I didn’t understand… okay, anything—if I don’t want it, then I don’t want it. Seemingly. He says, in fact some of the medieval authorities write this—the later authorities too; the medieval authorities write it about another example in Bava Metzia on page 30. There’s another example there about “upon which no yoke has come” regarding the red heifer. So the yoke has to come upon it with the owner’s consent. If it comes not with his consent… who wants a yoke to come upon it? His red heifer will be disqualified. A red heifer is worth millions. If it gets disqualified and becomes an ordinary cow, then it’s worth, I don’t know, a few thousand shekels. Right? So everyone wants that no yoke should come upon it. Whenever a yoke comes upon it, it’s something he doesn’t want. So how is a red heifer ever disqualified? How does that happen? It’s always inconvenient for the owner that it be disqualified. Same question. There Tosafot really says what Iris said earlier: you have to want the result, not its halakhic implication, but the practical result. And they say the same thing about the Arukh. But in the simple sense that’s a bit forced, because what does that mean? Where does that come from? Either I want it or I don’t want it. Why make that distinction? What’s the logic of that distinction? True, there’s seemingly no choice, but there also has to be some logic to the distinction itself.
[Speaker E] But it’s as if anyway…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, I think these things can also be reconciled with Rabbi Shimon Shkop. All kinds of loops like these can be reconciled with Rabbi Shimon Shkop.
[Speaker E] Why? It’s a loop. Why?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because if I don’t want it, then an inevitable result I don’t want—I’m exempt, right? Okay, but if I do want it, then I’ll be liable, so therefore I don’t want it, right? And therefore—but if I don’t want it, then I actually do want it. But if not—no, no—but if I don’t want it, then I do want it, because I’m not liable to stoning, so why shouldn’t I want it? It’s a loop; it doesn’t stop. By the way, the Ran resolves Tosafot’s difficulty in Bava Metzia this way. He says: why indeed do we disqualify the cow when a yoke came upon it? Because there’s a loop. You can’t stop with saying that it’s always inconvenient for the owner. Because if it’s inconvenient for the owner and the animal is not disqualified, then that is convenient for him. And therefore you can continue this loop endlessly. The question why to stop precisely here is another question, but fine. In any case, back to our issue. What I just want to say here is that, in Rabbi Yosef’s view, what I’m saying is a very similar principle. Testimony such that if we accept it, it will pull the ground out from under itself—that is testimony that is not accepted. And again, the point is the testimony, not the witness. Okay? That’s exactly like Rabbi Shimon Shkop: what I’m saying is not that the act of betrothal is invalidated. Rather, no result of betrothal will come into being. I have no problem with the act of betrothal; the act of betrothal is not invalid. But the result—the result cannot occur. Okay? It’s very, very similar; it’s the same logic. Fine, that’s what Rabbi Yosef says. Rava argues no, we split the statement. Yes, Rava said: a person is considered related to himself, and a person does not make himself wicked. Since I do not accept his testimony about himself, either because a person does not make himself wicked or because he is related—we discussed that there are several ways to understand this—so because of that, he is not wicked. Since he is not wicked—we do not accept his testimony about himself—therefore there is no reason to disqualify his testimony about the one who committed the act. Okay? That is what Rava argues. We said the same thing on page 25: “So-and-so lent me money with interest”; we won’t go back to that, it’s exactly the same story. Now I want to move to the Talmud in Makkot. In the Talmud in Makkot, look in front of you: Ila’a and Tuvia were relatives of the guarantor. Ila’a and Tuvia are the names of two people who were related to the guarantor. There was a loan: Reuven lent money to Shimon, and Levi was the guarantor. Okay? Now Abraham and Isaac are the two witnesses. These witnesses are relatives of Levi. Okay? Not of Reuven and not of the lender and not of the borrower. In the transaction itself, directly, they are not related to anyone. In principle they are allowed to testify, but they are relatives of the guarantor. Now what’s the problem? In principle they are not related to the borrower and not related to the lender, so there’s no problem—they can testify that he was the borrower and he was the lender. A question will arise regarding the guarantor? Then right, regarding the guarantor they won’t be able to testify. Okay? So the Gemara says: Rav Pappa thought to say that regarding the borrower and lender they are unrelated. They can testify about the borrower and the lender; with respect to them they are unrelated, not relatives. About the guarantor we will not accept their testimony. Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua said to Rav Pappa: if the borrower has no money, will the lender not go after the guarantor? If the borrower has no money, won’t the lender go collect from the guarantor? So in fact testimony that so-and-so borrowed is indirectly also testimony about the guarantor. Because this testimony, that so-and-so borrowed, will cause the lender to go to the guarantor. So therefore we won’t accept their testimony even about the loan itself, not only about the guarantor. That is what Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua argued.
[Speaker C] But from the guarantor’s side, at some point the guarantor becomes a kind of borrower if the borrower can’t
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] pay, then he himself already becomes the borrower.
[Speaker C] They take the money from him, right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So there is an implication. Once there is an implication for the guarantor, then they are related to the interested party; the guarantor is basically a kind of interested party, because if the borrower has no money they’ll go collect from him. So because they are relatives of an interested party, they cannot testify. And therefore they also cannot testify about the loan itself, not just about the guarantor. That is the argument. You can smell here the connection to the issue of splitting a statement, right? Basically there is some testimony here where we have a problem with part of it, and the question is why Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua disqualifies all of it. Why shouldn’t he say: we’ll disqualify the testimony regarding the guarantor, but we won’t disqualify it regarding the lender and borrower? And then what would come out? That if the borrower has no money, the lender won’t be able to go to the guarantor because there is no testimony about the guarantor; the testimony about the guarantor is invalid. Here, it says in the document: Reuven lent money to Shimon and Levi is the guarantor. The two witnesses who signed the document are witnesses who can testify only about Reuven and Shimon, but not about Levi. Okay? The Rosh goes into this matter at length and writes as follows: “Ila’a and Tuvia were relatives of the guarantor. Rav Pappa thought to say: regarding the borrower and lender they are unrelated. Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua said to Rav Pappa: if the borrower has no money, will the lender not go after the guarantor?” Rashi explained that they were witnesses to the loan. The witnesses being discussed—what are they testifying about? They were witnesses to the loan; they are witnesses to the loan. Because there is a question here whether they are witnesses to the loan or witnesses to repayment. He says: they are witnesses to the loan. “And this is similar to that in the Jerusalem Talmud”—it is similar to a case that appears in the Jerusalem Talmud—“he wrote his property to two people, and the witnesses are valid for one and invalid for the other.” He says: I am writing a document by which I transfer my property to Reuven and Shimon. Now Levi and Yehuda come along, and they are related to Shimon but not to Reuven. Is the document completely invalid so that you also can’t give the land to Reuven by means of this document, or not? Reuven yes and Shimon no? So the Jerusalem Talmud says. Here too, since if the borrower has nothing the lender goes after the guarantor, if so the document is written about the borrower and the guarantor, and since they are invalid regarding the guarantor they are also invalid regarding the borrower. That is what is written in the Jerusalem Talmud, and the Rosh says basically the same thing is written here as well: since they are invalid regarding one person within the testimony, even though the testimony concerns two people together, their testimony is invalid also with respect to the other person, exactly the same as here. That is how he explains Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua. So far there’s still no splitting of the statement or anything. “And the Ra’avad wrote”—until now we spoke about their being witnesses to the loan, not witnesses to repayment—“and the Ra’avad wrote that their claims are about matters of repayment, for example if the borrower said to the lender, ‘I repaid you,’ and with that claim the guarantor is exempt, and the lender brought witnesses that he did not repay, and it turns out the guarantor becomes liable.” So the Ra’avad explains that the witnesses being discussed are not witnesses to the loan; they are witnesses to repayment. They are witnesses testifying that there was repayment. Of course this too has an implication, because if there was repayment then in that they exempt not only the borrower but also the guarantor, and if they say there was no repayment then they obligate the borrower, and if the borrower has nothing then they will go to the guarantor.
[Speaker E] Is there a situation where a person says “I repaid,” and the witnesses who come against him are still believed? No? Why? Because I’m trying to understand how the reality
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] here happens. He
[Speaker E] says “I repaid,” then the lender brings witnesses, and then they go to the guarantor.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, they don’t go to the guarantor—they can go to the guarantor
[Speaker E] if the borrower doesn’t have it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if he doesn’t pay him.
[Speaker E] Ah, only if he doesn’t have it? Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Since there is an implication for the guarantor, this testimony basically concerns his relative.
[Speaker B] He can bring witnesses
[Speaker D] that he did not
[Speaker E] repay?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Say he said, “I repaid on Wednesday,” so they say, “What are you talking about? The guy was with us in Australia on Wednesday.”
[Speaker B] According to the Ra’avad, then we have—so did he
[Speaker D] repay on Thursday?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but the testimony was that he repaid on Wednesday.
[Speaker B] Is there splitting of the statement?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, we haven’t yet talked about splitting the statement. Right now it’s only a dispute whether we are dealing with witnesses to the loan or witnesses to repayment, okay?
[Speaker B] Those are two opinions.
[Speaker D] Rashi—if it doesn’t matter, they are witnesses to the loan, but are they not believed also for repayment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, the Gemara says—they are not believed. In the Gemara it says that the witnesses are not believed; they are disqualified regarding everyone according to Rav Huna the son of Rav Yehoshua. They are disqualified both regarding the borrower and regarding the guarantor. The question is what kind of witnesses are being discussed. On that Rashi and the Ra’avad disagree. Rashi argues that the Gemara is talking about witnesses to the loan, and the Ra’avad says that the Gemara is talking about witnesses to repayment.
[Speaker C] You can’t testify that something didn’t happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sure you can testify that something didn’t happen. If someone was with me in Australia that same day, then it didn’t happen. What do you mean?
[Speaker C] I mean, what if he forgot, what if he got confused?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if he forgot and got confused, let him go study. In the meantime, what you’re saying didn’t happen, that’s all. He was with us in Australia for a year, okay? He didn’t forget and he didn’t get confused; he was with us for a year in Australia. It’s not important—the point is only that there can be such a case. After all, if it’s just a hypothetical question, that’s no good. So let’s see. “And if you say”—now our story begins—“let them be believed regarding the borrower, that he did not repay”—here he follows the Ra’avad, that we are talking about witnesses to repayment, yes?—“and not be believed regarding the guarantor, because we split the statement, just as in the first chapter of Sanhedrin: ‘So-and-so committed the act with him consensually,’ and another witness joins with him to execute him, because we split the statement, since a person is related to himself and does not make himself wicked. And similarly in the chapter ‘This one selects,’ what we saw with Bar Binyata: two testified against him; one said, ‘He lent with interest,’ and one said, ‘He lent me with interest,’ and Rava disqualified Bar Binyata because a person is related to himself, and we believe him that he lent with interest but not that he lent to me.” So he brings the two Gemaras we saw, where there is this idea of splitting the statement. The Jewish law follows Rava, and then he says: so why don’t we split the statement also in the Gemara in Makkot? “And similarly in Yevamot 25b: a witness came and said, ‘I killed this woman’s husband.’” He comes to permit her to remarry, so he says: friends, this woman’s husband died; I have very clear testimony to that—I myself killed him. So therefore the woman is permitted to remarry. Now of course if he is a murderer, then he is disqualified from testimony; he is wicked, right? And what is the ruling there? They permit her to remarry, because we believe him that he was killed, but not that he killed him. We split the statement, right? We say: we do not believe you that you are a murderer, but we do believe you that the other man was murdered, okay—or that the other man died, yes. So here too, let us split the statement and believe them regarding the borrower, but not regarding imposing liability on the guarantor. So why in our Gemara do we not accept the two witnesses regarding the borrower, to whom they are not related, and not accept their testimony regarding the guarantor, to whom they are related? Why don’t we split? “And some answer that it is not comparable.” By the way, in the whole topic of splitting a statement—which is quite a broad topic and a great deal has been written about it—this passage in the Rosh is the most fundamental source. “There, those witnesses come to impose liability on the man or to disqualify him. Therefore, in the essence of the testimony—that he committed the act or that he lent with interest—they are believed. And when he says ‘to me,’ those are separate words, and we do not accept that from him.” Okay? What is he saying? In the cases in Sanhedrin—“so-and-so committed the act with me consensually,” or “so-and-so lent me money with interest”—the testimony in its essence is testimony intended to disqualify the offender or the interest-lender. It is not relevant whom he committed the act with or to whom he lent with interest. What does that have to do with it? There’s some side detail. We ask them—say, as part of the witnesses’ interrogations and examinations—tell us, and who was the victim, or to whom did he lend with interest, so that we can see that you really saw the act there, but that is not part of the body of the testimony. The body of the testimony is that he committed the act. Why do you care with whom he committed it? He is disqualified. Therefore, says the Rosh, there we split the statement; we allow ourselves to divide and accept the main testimony and waive a side detail.
[Speaker E] But here it’s like what we saw in Tosafot.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But the notion of obligating the borrower and not the guarantor—that’s impossible, since there is a document in which he is the guarantor. What does that mean? He says you can’t break up the testimony—this is somewhat connected to things we discussed—you can’t break up the testimony about the guarantor from the testimony about the borrower. Why? Because both are written in the same document. So decide: do you accept these witnesses as testifying to what is written in the document? Then it includes both the borrower and the guarantor. If you don’t accept them, then you accept nothing. And therefore in our Gemara, since you cannot accept the testimony regarding the guarantor because they are his relatives, the entire document is invalidated; consequently, you also cannot accept it regarding the borrower. Okay? But really it would seem there was room to say—what, in Makkot? Not here, no, no, in Makkot there would be room to discuss what would happen if they said: so-and-so lent so-and-so on such-and-such a day, and so-and-so is the guarantor—not in the same document. They are testifying as two separate testimonies. It would appear from the Rosh that there we would split it. Right?
[Speaker C] Because the guarantor is also mentioned in the document?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. In the document it says who the lender is, who the borrower is, and who the guarantor is. It’s basically a loan contract, the document.
[Speaker C] The document includes lender, borrower, and guarantor. Right? So with us, the essence of the testimony is actually that this was false, that “we were under duress”? Yes? Not that we signed something false.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in our sugya—wait, wait—in our sugya we’ll still get there. Let’s go slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. We’ll get to our sugya. First of all, I want to compare the sugyot in Sanhedrin, where they do split the statement, to the sugya in Makkot, where they do not split it. So the Rosh says the first explanation he offers is that we split the statement when it’s a side detail. We accept the main testimony and give up a side detail that is unnecessary for the main testimony. But where you can’t break the testimony into two—the testimony is about the document, and in the document there are two details: that he borrowed and that he is the guarantor. So if you accept their testimony, then the document is a valid document and everything the document says is valid. So therefore you can’t split the testimony, and you do not split the statement in such a case. There are—I might talk about this later—situations where we say that we don’t split the statement because this is called “splitting in the derivative.” When one conclusion is a derivative of the other conclusion, we cannot separate them. Meaning, you can’t say: I accept conclusion A but I don’t accept conclusion B, when conclusion B is a result of conclusion A. Or maybe the reverse? What?
[Speaker B] Give an example. No, no, you didn’t give an example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Conclusion B is a derivative of conclusion A. So I can’t accept conclusion A and not accept B. B is its derivative, yes. So if, for example, witnesses come and say: so-and-so divorced his wife, and there is some issue regarding the ketubah. We want to accept the testimony regarding the divorce but not regarding the ketubah. I don’t remember the exact case; we’ll discuss it later. Okay? They say there is no such thing. His obligation to give her a ketubah is a derivative of the fact that he divorced her. Someone who divorces his wife has to give her a ketubah. So you can’t split the two things and say: we’ll believe them that he divorced her, but we won’t obligate him to give a ketubah. There is no such thing. In other words, the obligation to give a ketubah is a derivative of the fact that there was a divorce here. So that is “splitting in the derivative.” The Rosh here says something similar. And I’ll show later that it’s not exactly the same thing, but it is similar. The Rosh says: since this is one document, then if you accept the document, both implications exist—the borrower and the guarantor. If you don’t accept the document, then nothing exists. If you cannot accept the document completely, the conclusion is that you do not accept it at all. You can’t divide it and accept it regarding the borrower but not regarding the guarantor. You can’t make that kind of division, because we are dealing with one document. Really, if it were not in a document—oral testimony about the borrower and the guarantor—it could be that yes, one could divide it, accepting the testimony about the borrower but not about the guarantor. Now the Rosh continues and says this. Up to this point, that was the Rosh. “And the Ra’avad, of blessed memory, wrote in his responsa”—and a lot of medieval authorities bring this Ra’avad—“that any testimony part of which is void due to the disqualification of kinship, all of it is void. And we do not split the statement. For the Merciful One did not distinguish, for it says: from two, if one of them is found to be related or disqualified, their testimony is void; the same applies even to three. Therefore we do not split their testimony.” What is he saying? A basic principle first of all. There is a rule called: testimony part of which is invalid is invalid in its entirety. The example the Ra’avad brings is a problematic example. But the example the Ra’avad brings is the case of “one is found related or disqualified.” We discussed this in the lesson; I mentioned it in the previous lesson. If a set of two, three, ten witnesses comes—not משנה how many—and one of them is disqualified, he disqualifies the entire
[Speaker B] set.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Torah did not distinguish between two witnesses and three or five witnesses. If one is disqualified, even though four valid ones remain, it doesn’t matter. If one is disqualified, the whole set is disqualified. We talked about how in betrothal that is why one has to designate the witnesses, so that relatives do not invalidate the betrothal, and so on. So the Ra’avad says: from here we learn a more general principle, that just as we are unwilling to divide within a set of witnesses and say these are valid and those are invalid, so too we are unwilling to divide the content of the testimony. It cannot be that we accept part of the testimony and do not accept another part. So if they are relatives with respect to the guarantor, then the part of the testimony dealing with the guarantor cannot be accepted because they are relatives. But if part of it is invalid, then all of it is invalid; we also cannot accept the testimony about the borrower. What of course he now has to explain to us is: then how can it be that we do split the statement? Right, splitting the statement is exactly that—we accept one part of the testimony and not the second part. So if you tell me there is such a principle, that we do not divide the statement—if testimony part of which is invalid we invalidate all of it—then please explain to me the sugya of splitting the statement. Okay? Iris?
[Speaker C] No, I don’t understand this principle apart from the issue of a set of witnesses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, what other example? For instance here with us: what happens when witnesses come and say “Shimon is the borrower and Levi is the guarantor,” and they are Levi’s two brothers. Okay? Now their testimony about Levi is void, right? That’s not part of the set of witnesses; it’s part of the testimony, the content of the testimony. That part of the content of the testimony cannot be accepted because they are relatives. But if part of the testimony is void, then we do not accept the whole testimony. Just as if there is part of the set of witnesses that is disqualified, we do not accept the whole set of witnesses. The Ra’avad infers from one to the other. Not everyone accepts that, but the Ra’avad infers from one to the other.
[Speaker C] What, so really of course, what’s the difference between—right? So now he explains, the question is whether there is a difference between the part
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the first and the second—between
[Speaker C] the testimony and the case—wait, we’ll see in a moment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the sugya of splitting the statement, a difficulty now arises, because in the sugya of splitting the statement that is exactly what we do—we divide the testimony. My testimony is accepted regarding the offender but not regarding the victim. Why? But part invalid means all invalid, right? And maybe that is even the explanation of what Abaye and Rabbi Yosef say: since you don’t accept part of the testimony, part invalid means all invalid, and you can’t accept the testimony at all.
[Speaker B] But here there are two testimonies. If there are two testimonies here—for example if we don’t accept his testimony about himself, let’s say, okay, and we do accept a different statement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why is that not different? It’s the second half of the testimony. Why not? Seemingly, yes. It is one testimony that has two details. If I didn’t accept one detail, then I also can’t accept the second detail, because if part of the testimony is invalid then all of it is invalid.
[Speaker B] No, but are those two parts really treated as two parts of the same testimony about one thing? Why not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is the same single act: “So-and-so committed the act with me consensually.”
[Speaker B] No, wait, there were times we divided and said this testimony is about the document and not about the witness and not about the person. “These are our signatures, but we were under duress.” Isn’t the testimony about two different entities or two different objects?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what? But still, within that testimony there are—yes—two different entities, but it is one testimony directed at two entities. If it is not accepted regarding one entity, it also cannot be accepted regarding the second entity, because part invalid means all invalid. It is always testimony composed of two parts; otherwise everything the Ra’avad says could not work. Everything the Ra’avad says is precisely about testimonies composed of parts, and then he says if there is one part you do not accept, don’t accept the rest either. So he says this.
[Speaker B] Here, on the examples.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now, now he talks about it. Here, in appearance.
[Speaker B] He says,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “And that which was said, ‘A person is related to himself and does not make himself wicked’”—which is exactly this question. After all, in the sugya in Sanhedrin we do split the statement. We say a person is related to himself and a person does not make himself wicked, and therefore we divide his statement. So the testimony about himself we do not accept, because a person does not make himself wicked and is related to himself. But the testimony about the offender or the interest-lender we do accept. How does that fit? Isn’t it part invalid means all invalid? So he says: “That is specifically when he testifies about himself, for that is not testimony at all; rather, it is as if he does not exist, for a person is not called a disqualified witness with regard to himself, such that we should say: testimony part of which is invalid is invalid in its entirety.” What is he saying? He is saying: testimony—everything I told you until now applies to testimony of relatives about their relative. So testimony that a relative gives about his relative is disqualified testimony. Testimony that a person gives about himself is not testimony at all. Not that it is disqualified testimony. Notice that the Ra’avad—exactly.
[Speaker D] The style,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the wording of the Gemara, that Rava disqualifies because “a person is related to himself,” seemingly indicates not like the Ra’avad. Because Rava basically says that regarding himself, a person is like a relative regarding his relative. So the Ra’avad says no, no: a person regarding himself is not testimony at all. It is not disqualified testimony; it is not testimony of a relative. It is not testimony at all. The Ra’avad puts the emphasis on “a person does not make himself wicked.” The Rosh puts the emphasis on “a person is related to himself.” Okay? The Ra’avad is basically saying: a person is not really related to himself; that’s just a manner of speaking. A person does not make himself wicked. When a person comes to make himself wicked, we do not hear his testimony at all. It is not testimony; it is not entered into the protocol at all. Testimony of a relative about his relative is entered into the protocol, and next to it is written: this testimony was disqualified because he is a relative. That is disqualified testimony. The Ra’avad says: if I have testimony with two parts, and one part of the testimony is disqualified, then the whole testimony is disqualified. But if I have testimony of two parts, and half of it is erased from the protocol—it is not testimony at all—then what remains is the second half, which is the whole testimony. There is no reason to disqualify it. There is no case here of testimony partially invalidated. The half that was canceled was not canceled; it was never testimony in the first place.
[Speaker C] And now I no longer have two parts in the testimony. Exactly. Meaning, if the first half is testimony about me that incriminates me…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then we split the statement. Exactly. That is the solution he proposes. The sugyot in Sanhedrin that split the statement—in other words, the sugyot in Sanhedrin that deal with splitting the statement—
[Speaker B] are
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] sugyot that deal with a person’s testimony about himself, says the Ra’avad. The sugya in Makkot, where we do not split the statement, is testimony of relatives about their relative, not about themselves. That is the difference. Not because of a minor detail, or what the Rosh said above—a detail from the body of the testimony versus a side detail. No. The question is whether you are related to the subject of the testimony, or you yourself are the subject of the testimony.
[Speaker B] Fantastic. And his money? Or—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Excellent point. Excellent point. But that is what the Ra’avad says. Okay? About myself, we split; about my relative, no? Yes—when the first half is about me, then there is
[Speaker C] no testimony at all. So automatically you can treat the second half as… No, that’s what Maimonides says, that it means—
[Speaker E] you can treat it, exactly. Is he saying this is an act that uproots itself?
[Speaker B] Is it a legal effect that uproots itself? What? If it’s an act that uproots itself? Which act? I’m saying: this testimony about myself. A person about himself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it doesn’t uproot itself. It is simply not accepted. Not because of some loop or some consequence of… It is simply not accepted. Like, if a wicked person comes and testifies, then he is disqualified; we do not accept his testimony.
[Speaker B] And what does the Rosh say?
[Speaker C] There?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Rosh does not distinguish between relatives and an interested party. And therefore the Rosh says the answer is different. Here we don’t split the statement because this is the very substance of the testimony, whereas there it is a side detail within the testimony. Okay?
[Speaker C] What the essence of the testimony is.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. But you can see that he doesn’t care whether these are relatives or the person himself. Meaning, according to the Rosh, in principle, suppose I say: so-and-so committed the act with my relative. Would there be splitting or not? So-and-so committed the act with my relative. Would we convict the offender or not? What? Would we convict the offender or not?
[Speaker B] Depends according to whom.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] According to Jewish law, if I say “so-and-so committed the act with me consensually,” “so-and-so committed the act with me consensually,” we accept the testimony, right? That’s Rava. The law follows Rava, that we split the statement. But if I now say “so-and-so committed the act with my relative,” with my brother…
[Speaker C] Say my wife, or his father… It depends. According to the Rosh, we accept the testimony.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? We split the statement like in the sugya in Sanhedrin. The Ra’avad says: it is indeed similar to the sugya in Sanhedrin, but here we are not dealing with an interested party but with a relative. With a relative there is no splitting. Just as his testimony is disqualified regarding the victim because it is his brother, that automatically also disqualifies the testimony regarding the offender because… part invalid means all invalid. That would be the implication, the difference between the Rosh and the Ra’avad—what would happen if someone came and said: so-and-so had relations with my relative.
[Speaker D] And what about testimony when people think about problems within the family of sexual abuse within a family, where siblings sometimes can testify, so sometimes the only people are relatives?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that we cannot execute the abuser does not prevent us from putting him in prison or imposing distancing sanctions on him or various things like that. Meaning, there is something to do even if the testimonies are invalid. But in terms of the formal halakhic punishment, you cannot accept that testimony. Okay?
[Speaker B] Now the Rosh says, “And his words are proven from the first chapter…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “of Sanhedrin,” in parentheses “page 11,” yes.
[Speaker B] Now he
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] brings proof for the Ra’avad from the sugya in Sanhedrin.
[Speaker B] Wait, wait—where are we? Where did you start reading, sorry? “And his words are proven…”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “from the first chapter of Sanhedrin,” in parentheses “page 11.” Right? Yes. Now he brings proof for the Ra’avad’s approach from the sugya in Sanhedrin.
[Speaker D] The Rosh doesn’t agree with the Ra’avad. He doesn’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He brings a first view, then he brings the Ra’avad’s view, and now he brings proof for the Ra’avad’s view. He says: “And his words are proven from the first chapter of Sanhedrin, where it says: ‘So-and-so had relations with my wife’—he and another witness combine to execute him, but not to execute her.” Meaning, we accept his testimony about the man but not about his wife, because he is related to her, right? So what? So they split the statement. The Gemara asks: that is obvious. The Gemara says, why is that obvious? Because we split the statement, because we already know that there is a rule of splitting the statement; we saw it in the previous sugya. “You might have thought: we say a person is related to himself, but regarding his wife we do not say so. Therefore it teaches us otherwise.” There was a possibility that we would split the statement when the person is related to himself, but we would not split the statement when the person testifies about his wife. It teaches us that we do split the statement even when the person testifies about his wife.
[Speaker B] Because that’s relevant to Sanhedrin. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, he brings proof from the sugya—again, the question is only his wife? We’ll see in a moment, we’ll see. What does that mean? What was the initial thought and what was new in the conclusion?
[Speaker E] The initial thought was that he and his wife are not the same thing, meaning that regarding himself we do it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? What’s the difference?
[Speaker E] Because “related to himself” is not “related to his wife as his own body.”
[Speaker C] Of course he’s related to his wife.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He is related to his wife; he cannot testify about his wife. There is no argument about that. A person cannot testify about his wife. Certainly he is related to her.
[Speaker C] It can have several meanings. One meaning is testimony about relatives; another meaning is bias, making himself wicked, or things like that. About his wife it’s not the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think that is the point, because with respect to relatives she is certainly a relative. What difference does it make if he is not biased? A person who is related…
[Speaker C] We said that if it was “so-and-so committed the act with his father,” that same
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] thing—it’s like his wife. That’s exactly the point.
[Speaker C] We said earlier that it isn’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it depends whether according to the Rosh or according to the Ra’avad. That’s exactly the proof the Rosh brings. The Rosh says: seemingly, what is written here in the Gemara is the opposite of what the Ra’avad says. Because the Ra’avad argues that with relatives we do not split the statement, right? And what do we see here? That with his wife, who is a relative and not he himself, we do split the statement. That is against the Ra’avad. He says no—it is not against the Ra’avad; it is proof for the Ra’avad. Not only is the Ra’avad consistent with it, only the Ra’avad is consistent with it. Why? Because the Gemara had an initial thought that we would not split the statement regarding his wife. Why indeed not? What was the initial thought? The initial thought is what the Ra’avad says: that his wife is only a relative, and with a relative we do not split the statement. The splitting we do is when I testify about myself, not when I testify about a relative. The big question is what happens in the conclusion. “It teaches us otherwise”—that we do split the statement even in testimony about his wife—so that seems against the Ra’avad, because evidently we do split the statement also with a relative. The Rosh explains it like this; by the way this is how the first view, which disagrees with the Ra’avad, would read it. Those who say that we do split the statement with relatives will say: correct, the initial thought in the Gemara was like the Ra’avad, but the conclusion of the Gemara is like us. In fact, they split the statement also regarding his wife, so we see that splitting also applies to relatives. The Rosh argues no. The Gemara initially assumed that the wife is a relative, and therefore it said: wait, then why split the statement? With relatives there is no splitting—exactly like the Ra’avad. The answer says: here is your mistake. A wife is not just a relative—his wife is like his own body. Testifying about one’s wife is like testifying about oneself; it is not like testifying about one’s brother. You can make nice wedding-speech ideas out of that. In other words, the point is that the relationship between husband and wife is not a relationship of mere kinship. In Torah language it is called “flesh-kin.” She is his flesh-kin, “except for his flesh-kin that is close to him” at the beginning of Leviticus chapter 21. “His flesh-kin that is close to him”—the Gemara expounds: that is his wife. Meaning, there is a difference between relatives and flesh-kin—yes, one’s own flesh, the husband or wife. Okay? So flesh-kin is like one’s own body, and that was exactly the discussion in the Gemara. The Gemara basically assumes the Ra’avad’s assumption, that there is no splitting with relatives. There is splitting only in a person’s testimony about himself. What was the give-and-take about the wife? At first we thought she was a relative, and therefore we thought we do not split the statement. They taught us: not true—one’s wife is like one’s own body, it is like testimony about oneself, and therefore yes, we do split the statement. That is the whole move. But throughout, the assumption is the Ra’avad’s assumption: with a relative there is no splitting, and only in a person’s testimony about himself is there splitting. Both in the initial thought and in the conclusion. The difference between the initial thought and the conclusion is only the question whether a wife is a relative or not a relative, not the question where we split the statement. That part is agreed; it is like the Ra’avad. The first view, which is the Rosh himself, let’s say, what he brings at the beginning—that we split the statement even with relatives—how would they read the Gemara here? They would of course say that this itself is the conclusion of the Gemara. The initial thought was like the Ra’avad, that we do not split the statement because a wife is a relative. It comes to teach us: not true, even with relatives we split the statement. And then the result is that a wife is indeed a relative. She is not something else; she is a relative. A relative like any other relative.
[Speaker E] A relative like any other relative.
[Speaker C] About my son, that is considered a relative.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, that is not “flesh-kin.” That is a relative.
[Speaker E] Only a wife is flesh-kin. Only a wife. If it is one of the other relatives, then here it would be different according to the Rosh.
[Speaker B] Children are not flesh-kin?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, only a wife is flesh-kin.
[Speaker E] If we say that about the child or about the father we do split the statement? No. So that goes according to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he says, “So-and-so committed the act with my son” or “with my father,” that is a dispute between the Rosh and the Ra’avad. According to the Ra’avad we do not split the statement because it is a relative, and according to the Rosh we do split the statement because we split even with relatives.
[Speaker C] My father is not the same thing as my son. My father is a relative; my son is my flesh-kin. In Jewish law it’s the same thing. In Jewish law they are both relatives.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If your father—if you are his flesh-kin, then he is also your flesh-kin. What is the difference?
[Speaker C] Why not for the father but yes for the son?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You are his daughter just as the son is your son. What is the difference? The relationship is two-sided. If I am his flesh-kin, then he is my flesh-kin.
[Speaker C] There is what comes from me and what I come from. It’s not the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, but look from the father’s perspective. When your father looks at you, are you his flesh-kin? So then why shouldn’t he be your flesh-kin? Isn’t it symmetrical?
[Speaker C] Because he is not mine, not my offspring.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But you are his flesh-kin, you are flesh from him, so he is also flesh from you. What is the difference? It’s symmetrical. You’re saying flesh-kinship is not symmetrical. That’s not plausible. In any case, that is not how it works in Jewish law.
[Speaker B] Maybe you mean it as something chronological, as if the father gave birth to the son…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If the father begot the son, then what difference does that make? So therefore the son is his flesh-kin. If the son is his flesh-kin, then the father is also the son’s flesh-kin. You’re suggesting directionality; I don’t think so. In Jewish law there is no such thing. In Jewish law there is no difference. There are seven relatives. Father and son are relatives. His wife is like his own body. “His wife is like his own body”—that is flesh-kinship; that is something else.
[Speaker B] As if they are two halves of one thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the contrary—after all, a wife is the furthest thing there is; there is no shared flesh between them at all. And nevertheless, halakhically she is the closest there is. This is halakhic closeness, not biological closeness. Even though biologically she is the most distant. There is no sharing at all in terms of flesh. “And they shall become one flesh”—exactly. As for Rashi there, who writes that “they shall become one flesh” means with the child—when the child is born, they become one flesh.
[Speaker E] That’s what Iris is saying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But here we see not like that—from the Gemara, from Jewish law, we see not like that.
[Speaker E] It’s spiritual, not bodily.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, in any case, or just halakhically. Okay. The explanation of “you might have thought” is that a person is not so close to his wife that his testimony about her should be considered disqualified testimony, which would invalidate all the testimony on the principle that if part of it is invalidated, all of it is invalidated. It therefore comes to teach us that one’s wife is like one’s own body, and this is not testimony at all. Therefore we split the statement, just as we split in the case of his own person. When he testifies about his wife, it is as though he is testifying about himself. And the same is also said there regarding “So-and-so sodomized my ox,” the next case in the Talmudic text in Sanhedrin. What happens there? We say a person is close to himself; we do not say that regarding his property. What does that mean? There we had thought that we would split the statement in the case of “So-and-so sodomized my ox,” and the conclusion is that we do not split the statement. The simple reading is actually the reverse. At first we thought we do split the statement because this is testimony of a person about himself; it comes to teach us that regarding an ox we do not split the statement, because testimony about an ox is not like testimony of a person about himself. We do not say that a person is close to his property. That’s more distant than his wife. It’s like relatives or something like that. Maybe even more distant than relatives, but practically speaking it is not close enough to allow splitting. So the move in the case of one’s wife and in the case of “So-and-so sodomized my ox” is an opposite move, but the foundation underlying both of these moves is the Raavad’s foundation: with relatives we do not split, and with a litigant himself we do split. The question in the Talmudic discussion is who is called a relative and who is called a litigant himself; both regarding the ox and regarding the wife there is a discussion whether they have the status of a relative or the status of the litigant himself.
[Speaker C] “Litigant himself” meaning what? Again, what is a litigant himself? Ownership? No, involvement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the discussion regarding the ox. Because with the ox there was an initial thought to split the statement. Why? Because if you took my ox, I’m the litigant himself, but it’s my property. It comes to teach us that no. A person’s testimony has to be about himself, not about things in which he has an interest.
[Speaker B] But with the ox it’s an interest, that’s it, not ownership.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so I’m saying: in the initial thought they thought that “litigant himself” means anyone who has an interest, and therefore they thought to split the statement also in the case of “So-and-so sodomized my ox,” because I have an interest in it. But the conclusion is that we do not split the statement. That means that interest is not enough to make someone a litigant himself, for this purpose, that’s what I mean. A litigant himself is when it is about me personally, not when there is some involvement with something in which I have an interest. That is not enough. Okay? Good. So afterward he explains the Jerusalem Talmud according to this; that is basically the discussion in the Raavad, in the Rosh—the Rosh and the Ra’avad, okay? Now the later authorities discuss this, and I think it is not completely clear, but you simply need to know it; and you’ll also see this in Rabbi Shimon Shkop, maybe you already saw it: there are two mechanisms of splitting. There is splitting the statement, and there is splitting credibility. And some connect the dispute between the Rosh and the Ra’avad to this. “Splitting the statement” means that I say a certain sentence and divide it into two parts—half we accept and half we do not accept. For example, “So-and-so sodomized me willingly”: “So-and-so sodomized” we accept; “me willingly” we do not accept. I simply physically cut the statement. This part I accept, and this part—say, in the Raavad’s terminology—I didn’t even put in the protocol; it is not testimony at all. Okay? The Raavad clearly speaks about splitting the statement. Right? That is why the Raavad said that when you want to divide the statement, when do you do it? Only when the half you want to ignore was in fact never really said. But the other half remains by itself, so why invalidate it? That half is the only testimony I gave, and that we accept. The Raavad assumes that splitting the statement means cutting the statement itself. The Rosh perhaps—and here I’m uncertain about him, but this is what several later authorities want to claim—the Rosh understands the whole issue of splitting as splitting credibility, not splitting the statement. What does that mean? I believe you entirely that so-and-so sodomized you willingly. But I accept only the implication regarding so-and-so and not the implication regarding you. The division I make is not a division of the statement but a division of the implications of the statement. I accept the whole statement only for matter A, and I accept nothing from the statement for matter B. Do you understand what I’m saying? And therefore the Raavad’s distinction—it’s an issue of credibility. Because the question is why believe you in everything? By “credibility” I mean the implication—why do I believe you, what do I do with this statement, for what matter do I believe you? The question is precisely about the credibility I grant you; that’s where we do the splitting, not in what you said. The Raavad sees it as though I simply cut your statement with scissors. So he says: that is only in a place where the half I am cutting off truly does not exist, so it is cut off by itself; I do not need to cut it. But where I have to cut, one may not cut, because if part is invalidated, all of it is invalidated. So if half is invalid, you do not cut; if half is invalid, everything is invalidated. When do you cut? When it is already cut off by itself. One half is not testimony at all—when a person testifies about himself that is not testimony at all—so what remains is only the second part. The Raavad clearly understands the mechanism of splitting as an almost physical mechanism: you simply cut the statement in two like with scissors. The later authorities want to claim that on this very point the Rosh disagrees with him. The Rosh argues that there is no difference between a relative and the litigant himself, because the Rosh is not interested in how you cut or do not cut; the Rosh cuts nothing. The Rosh accepts the entire testimony, but only with regard to the implications that do not concern you. With regard to the implications that do concern you, I accept nothing from the testimony. So in our case, for example, when I say “So-and-so sodomized me willingly,” in fact the entire testimony is accepted, including that I was the one sodomized, everything—but it is used only for the conviction of the assailant; it is not used for my conviction.
[Speaker D] So why not according to the Rosh? I didn’t understand—why, what is the reasoning not to do it that way? I didn’t understand. If he accepts all the testimony… the Rosh says that if part is invalidated, all of it is invalidated…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He says if part is invalidated, all of it is invalidated—you cannot cut the testimony in two; either you accept it or you do not accept it. Accept it. What you can say is: look, for this matter the testimony is sufficient for me and I use it; for that matter the testimony is not sufficient for me. But not that I cut the statement. I accept the whole statement. I’ll give you an example where it is easier to see this. The example he himself brought—look, the Rosh himself brought, if you notice, an example exactly with the heirs in Yevamot, here, Yevamot 105. And likewise in Yevamot, after he brings Sanhedrin 9 and Sanhedrin 25, he brings Yevamot 105. “Until one came and said: I killed the husband of this woman.” Okay? No, no, I take that back. That too is splitting the statement. A witness comes—maybe he brings it later. One witness comes and says: her husband died. It’s related to the witness saying her husband died, which is why I thought that was the topic there, but it isn’t. One witness comes and says the woman’s husband died. The law is—this is the law, this is what we do—the woman is permitted to remarry, but the heirs do not take possession of the inheritance.
[Speaker E] The father’s heirs.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Their children will not now be able to inherit. Because for inheritance that is not enough. For inheritance you need two witnesses. For testimony about a woman, because of agunah situations, we are lenient and accept the testimony of one witness. So if one person comes and says, one witness comes and says, “The husband of this woman died,” we will allow her to marry, even though she is a married woman—and being a married woman is more severe than inheritance and monetary law. One witness is enough; we let the woman marry. But the inheritance we keep frozen until it becomes clear to us that the husband really died through two witnesses. If there are not two witnesses, the children will not receive the inheritance.
[Speaker B] Now here, this is splitting credibility.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the Torah level? Yes. On the Torah level. Until we know the husband died, otherwise it is his property. To estimate is not enough; you need two witnesses. Assessments are not enough. This is exactly like with—what was the name of that pilot in Lebanon? Ron Arad. Ron Arad. There, there are very, very strong assessments.
[Speaker B] From a halakhic standpoint you need direct testimony.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. Even though everyone understands what is basically going on there, from the standpoint of Jewish law you need two direct witnesses who saw it. There may be situations where very clear and unequivocal evidence—not just strong assessments, but very direct indications—might perhaps also be accepted.
[Speaker B] In the plane case from Protective Edge it was also easier.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because they weren’t married. Yes, okay, but that’s exactly it—there the problem was not permitting their wives to remarry. Baumel and Feldman.
[Speaker B] No, I’m talking about Hadar Goldin.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hadar Goldin. Yes. No, but there was also Baumel and the others, who also weren’t married. There too there was a story. But afterward in the end clear evidence arrived. A memorandum? Yes. In any case, I knew Baumel—he studied one year below me in Midrasha.
[Speaker E] But there, there was clear evidence.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Midrasha. At Gush afterward too. There also he was one year below me there; I knew him and also his parents. Okay, in any case, in this case one witness comes and says her husband died. So we allow the woman to remarry, but we do not let the children take the inheritance. Now here, this is splitting credibility. On the Torah level? Yes. On the Torah level. Until we know the husband died.
[Speaker B] Now here it is not relevant to do splitting the statement. There is no splitting the statement here. In Yevamot?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In the case I just said. One witness comes and says her husband died.
[Speaker B] That is not splitting the statement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We believe everything he says, that her husband died. We are not cutting the statement, accepting half. Rather, in the outcome—right, he didn’t say more—but we do split the outcomes. We accept the testimony that her husband died only for the matter that she may remarry, but regarding giving the children the inheritance we do not accept the testimony. That is what is called splitting credibility.
[Speaker D] “Splitting credibility” means what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The exact same statement.
[Speaker D] Because technically something is missing there.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, it doesn’t matter, there is always a reason why. But in the end, what we do is divide the credibility.
[Speaker B] He is believed for permitting the woman, but that is not sufficient…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. And that is what is called splitting credibility.
[Speaker B] The whole statement, or the whole testimony, can be true for one matter and not true—or maybe not sufficient—for another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if the husband died, then one should both give the inheritance and permit the woman to remarry; what is the difference? Decide—either he died or he didn’t. And I say: no, we accept the testimony that he died, but we draw implication A from it and do not draw implication B from it, because implication B requires two witnesses. That is the direction of the Rosh. So the later authorities bring this—it’s a Talmudic text, it’s a Talmudic text, no one disputes this. The later authorities bring that you can see there in the Talmudic text the idea of splitting credibility.
[Speaker B] And apparently it is agreed upon. The question is whether the sugya—it doesn’t mention the term splitting there, by the way, in the Talmudic text. In our Talmudic text in Sanhedrin, where splitting the statement is mentioned, is that the same mechanism as there?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And then we will explain here too that this is a matter of splitting credibility; that is, the entire testimony is accepted—“So-and-so sodomized me willingly,” all of it is accepted—but what we do with it is only split the credibility: to disqualify the assailant but not regarding me. And that is exactly splitting credibility, and then it turns out that the sugya here is really just a continuation of the agreed-upon sugya of splitting credibility. There is no additional mechanism of division here. Okay? It is ordinary splitting credibility. That is how the Rosh understands it.
[Speaker E] After we have done splitting.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? After we have done splitting, then the case is similar. Not after—we are doing the splitting.
[Speaker E] We accept one hundred percent of the testimony. Yes, but…
[Speaker C] Because it’s one statement though. The testimony is one statement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But one statement that has two parts in it: he is the assailant and I am the victim.
[Speaker C] No, I’m talking about “her husband died.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Her husband died” is clear; there everyone agrees. It is one statement with nothing to cut. I’m saying, there everyone agrees. There everyone agrees—that is splitting credibility.
[Speaker E] I’m asking now in the sugya.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ours, because there the term splitting is not mentioned. There they do it—that is the law in the Talmudic text and it is mentioned. Here the term “splitting the statement” is mentioned. The Rosh understood—if that is how one understands him, I’m saying—the Rosh understood that the term “splitting the statement” is simply a conceptualization of what is done there. That is the concept: splitting credibility. Meaning that here too we do not cut the statement. We accept the whole statement, but only regarding the assailant and not regarding the victim. That too is splitting credibility, that’s all. Okay. But also in cutting the…
[Speaker C] …the statement, in the end it comes out that you’re cutting the implications in this direction and that direction. Wait, that’s a result; first of all you cut the statement.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll see, we’ll see more. So that is one point—that is the Rosh’s position. The Raavad’s position is not like that. The sugya of splitting the statement is an entirely separate sugya. Splitting credibility is a different section that is agreed upon; that is not what we are talking about. We are asking whether one may cut the statement. Splitting the statement is when the testimony has two parts. When a witness comes and says “her husband died,” that is testimony that does not have two parts; it has only one part, with two implications but not two parts. Okay? But when I come and say “So-and-so sodomized me willingly,” that is testimony that has two parts. The Raavad says this has nothing to do with splitting credibility. It is the dispute between Rav Yosef and Rava whether we do splitting the statement. “Statement” means cutting the statement in two. Okay? By the way, I’ll give you a sharper explanation of the Raavad’s view. Why does Rav Yosef not dispute in the sugya in Yevamot there with “her husband died”? Why is it agreed there? The dispute whether we split or do not split the statement should seemingly come up there too, no? Rav Yosef does not accept splitting, so let him dispute there too. Where? In that sugya where a witness comes and says “her husband died.”
[Speaker E] Where is a person incriminating himself? So what? There is one testimony here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But this is splitting—does he split or not split? Rav Yosef, come on. So why does he accept it there? After all, there it is agreed that we do split. The Raavad will tell us, the Raavad will tell us: there that is splitting credibility. Splitting credibility is something else. Splitting the statement—Rav Yosef disputes that, saying we do not do it; there is no cutting of the statement.
[Speaker B] But here there is no cutting in “her husband died.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, and therefore there Rav Yosef does not dispute. Therefore there Rav Yosef does not dispute. That is the Raavad. According to the Rosh, that really is a good question. According to the Rosh, since it is the same mechanism—this is splitting credibility and that is splitting the statement—then why does Rav Yosef not dispute there? According to the Rosh, apparently we need to say what I explained at the beginning of the lesson. What Rav Yosef disputes with Rava is that in principle he accepts the whole discussion of splitting the statement; we do split. But he says: according to your view, you are wicked. I cannot—I accept the whole testimony, but only regarding the assailant. But I cannot accept the whole testimony regarding the assailant, because part of the testimony also says that I am wicked, so how can I accept the testimony of a wicked person regarding the assailant? “According to your own words, you are wicked.” Therefore Rav Yosef disputes there. But if a witness comes and says “her husband died,” why would Rav Yosef dispute? You do splitting the statement because there is no connection between giving the children the inheritance and permitting the woman…
[Speaker B] …to remarry, and he also is not making himself wicked; there is nothing there that is against himself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct. So there is no—I’m saying, the point is that according to the Rosh, according to the Rosh, Rav Yosef also does not dispute in principle the mechanism of splitting, because splitting credibility is an agreed-upon mechanism in the case of “her husband died.” Why does Rav Yosef dispute here? Since he says here you cannot do splitting because “according to your own words, you are wicked.” You cannot do splitting. What do you want—that we accept the whole testimony, yes, “So-and-so sodomized me willingly,” but only regarding the assailant? But if within the testimony there is also the fact that I was willingly sodomized, then this testimony cuts off the branch on which it sits. Everything I discussed at the beginning of the lesson. Therefore Rav Yosef says we do not accept it. He does not object in principle to the mechanism of splitting. According to the Rosh, at least, that is what comes out. Right? He does not object in principle to the mechanism of splitting. He says only that here it does not apply, because if you—and note, according to the Raavad, who cuts the statement here, the question never comes up. After all, I cut the statement. I do not accept his testimony that he himself is wicked. I cut that off; it was not said. There is no problem at all. Okay? So here you need to say that Rav Yosef disputes the mechanism of splitting—that I do not accept the mechanism of splitting the statement. That’s all. But according to the Rosh, both are splitting credibility, both in Sanhedrin and in “her husband died.” So why does Rav Yosef agree in “her husband died” and dispute here? There is no choice but to say that according to the Rosh we do splitting credibility here. Splitting credibility means we accept all the testimony; we do not cut it as with the Raavad. We accept all the testimony. But part of the testimony is that I am wicked. So this testimony destroys itself. If we accept this testimony, it will follow that we cannot accept this testimony. Like with Rabbi Shimon Shkop that I mentioned earlier. So anything that, if you accept it, destroys itself—you cannot accept it. Therefore Rav Yosef disputes here. Okay? And then it comes out that the dispute between Rava and the Raavad and the Rosh is over the question whether in Jewish law there is only splitting credibility—that is what the Rosh claims—or whether there is another mechanism called splitting the statement. And regarding that, Rav Yosef and the Rosh disagree.
[Speaker D] Wait—and why does what the Talmudic text calls splitting the statement, the Rosh call splitting credibility?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. When they say splitting the statement, they mean splitting credibility. I call it statement and credibility simply in order to distinguish between the Rosh and the Raavad. But both of them call it splitting the statement. That is what is called splitting the statement. The intention is to divide the credibility of the statement, not to divide the statement. Okay? That is how it is generally understood.
[Speaker B] In every case where there is splitting, the Rosh will say it is splitting credibility. Yes. Right. And there is no such thing… Okay. Fine?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Come, we still have a few minutes. Let’s try to look at Tosafot. You saw the Tosafot, right? “And a person does not…” the Tosafot in our sugya. Now we can look at the Tosafot. “And if you say: but Rava holds that we split the statement in the first chapter of Sanhedrin regarding ‘So-and-so sodomized me willingly’ and ‘So-and-so had relations with my wife’; if so, here too they should be believed that they were coerced—but not because of money, rather because of threat to life—since the law follows Rava.” And we rule according to Rava, that we do split. So why here, when the witnesses come and say “We were coerced because of money,” what does the Talmudic text say about that? A person does not render himself wicked. You are making yourselves wicked. So what is the problem? Don’t believe them regarding making themselves wicked, but do believe them regarding invalidating the document. Okay? How did I formulate that just now? Credibility, right? Believe them fully about everything, but only regarding invalidating the document, and don’t believe anything regarding themselves. But Tosafot does not formulate it that way. How does Tosafot formulate it? “If so, they should be believed that they were coerced—but not because of money, rather because of threat to life.” How does he understand this? As splitting the statement or splitting credibility? Statement. Unambiguously statement. Because what does he say? “We were coerced because of money”—we will cut the statement, accept “we were coerced,” and not accept “because of money.” Right? That is what he proposes. Even though I, in the name of the Rosh, could have asked exactly the same question as Tosafot in the Rosh’s formulation. It’s not that the question does not exist according to the Rosh, but from Tosafot’s wording it appears that he is moving in the direction of the Raavad. According to the Rosh I would have had to ask the question differently: let us accept all of their testimony, but only for the matter of invalidating the document and not for making themselves wicked. So why does the Talmudic text say that a person does not render himself wicked, and therefore they cannot invalidate the document? Why? Regarding invalidating the document, accept it; only don’t let them make themselves wicked. So you can ask this both in the Rosh’s terminology and in the Raavad’s terminology. But from the way Tosafot chooses to formulate it, it is quite clear that he is going in the direction of the Raavad, that we are talking here about cutting the statement. “And one may say: since validation of documents is rabbinic, we do not split the statement in order to invalidate the document.” This whole validation-of-documents business is only rabbinic, so in this rabbinic enactment they said we will not do splitting here. Because after all, on the Torah level the document is valid anyway. So the whole enactment is a rabbinic enactment that a document has to be validated, and without the validation it is not valid. The Sages did not insist on it to that extent. Fine, a technical matter. “And further, we cannot on our own say that they were coerced because of threat to life, because coercion by threat to life is uncommon, as I explained.” Okay? Things that are uncommon—what is called splitting the statement there? What does splitting the statement say? I cut the statement; I accept “we were coerced” but not “because of money”—rather because of what? “We were coerced,” so what kind of coercion was there? Threat to life. But coercion by threat to life is uncommon. If the alternative is uncommon, we do not split the statement. Okay? That is the innovation of Tosafot. That is the second answer. So the first answer says this is a rabbinic enactment; the second answer says this is an uncommon claim. For an uncommon claim, we do not do splitting. And of course this has many implications. Now he says: “But there it is common that one had relations with another man’s wife just as with his own wife, or that one man sodomized another, and likewise in ‘I killed him’ at the end of the second chapter of Yevamot, etc.”—it may be that someone else killed him. “Or alternatively,” sorry, I skipped the “or alternatively”—“and likewise in ‘I killed him’…” “Or alternatively, here ‘because of money’ or ‘because of threat to life’ is an explanation of ‘we were coerced’; therefore we do not split the statement.” When I say “we were coerced because of money,” this is not two statements; the “because of money” describes the “we were coerced.” What kind of coercion were we under? Because of money. Something like that you do not cut. And again, of course, only if you hold of splitting the statement can you give this answer. Right? According to the Rosh this answer would not work, because I am not cutting the statement, so why should I care that the continuation is an explanation of the first part? After all, I accept the whole thing—I accept both the first part and the continuation—I just accept it only for implication A and not for implication B. So why should I care that the continuation is an explanation of the first part? According to the Rosh that is irrelevant. This answer of Tosafot cannot be given according to the Rosh, only according to the Raavad.
[Speaker C] Because “we were coerced because of threat to life” is really coercion, and “we were coerced because of money”…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …is a different kind of coercion, it doesn’t matter. But when we explain what we were coerced by…
[Speaker C] …then the explanation is important, it is…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] …part of the—of course it is important. I’m saying that beyond the fact that it is important, the fact that it is a continuation—if it is a continuation, you cannot cut it into two; these are not two parts of a statement, it is one statement, a continuation. Okay?
[Speaker C] I’m asking how one could think it could be divided into two.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: only according to the Rosh—according to the Rosh this answer does not belong at all. Why? Because according to the Rosh we do not cut the statement.
[Speaker C] Only according to the Raavad. Just a second—how according to the Raavad does it belong?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It does belong. This is Tosafot’s answer, and this answer goes in the Raavad’s approach. That is how he answers: you cannot divide the statement because one part explains the other. That is exactly what he answers. According to the Rosh, I’m saying this answer would not work, because according to the Rosh I can say: I accept “we were coerced because of money,” the whole thing—not because of threat to life, because of money—but only for invalidating the document and not for disqualifying themselves. So why should I care that the continuation is an explanation of the first part? That is not relevant according to the Rosh. Right? So again, this is evidence that Tosafot goes in the Raavad’s approach; he is talking about dividing the statement itself.
[Speaker E] What was the first answer? I missed it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Again, answer one: validation of documents is a rabbinic enactment, yes. “But in the case of ‘and had relations with his wife,’ that is an independent statement,” and so on. “Or alternatively, here the main thrust of their testimony in saying ‘we were coerced’ is to say that they did not see the lender.” The lender, yes. “If so, immediately they make themselves wicked, since they signed unless they explain their words; therefore splitting the statement does not apply here. But in that case of ‘I killed him’…” yes, in “I killed him” he comes to permit the woman; the main testimony is to say that he was killed, in order to allow his wife to remarry. And likewise “So-and-so sodomized him” or “had relations with his wife,” the main testimony is to execute so-and-so; therefore we split the statement. It is somewhat similar to the first answer of the Rosh that we saw in Makkot: the main statement and a side matter that I am willing to remove. Okay? It may be that in Tosafot’s last answer, what he is really saying is: no, the Raavad is not right, this is the Rosh. Until now he went with the Raavad’s conception that we cut the statement, and both the question and the answers were based on that. In the last answer he says: forget it, maybe one can indeed go in the direction of the Rosh and answer according to his view. Okay, we’ll stop here, and next time it will be Rabbi Shimon on splitting, and maybe I’ll send you a few more things to look at, a bit more on the sugya of splitting just to complete the picture, and that’s it—meaning one more time and we’ll finish splitting, we won’t dwell on it any longer. Thank you very much.
[Speaker B] But on Tuesday there is no class.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah right, the Tenth of Tevet. No, there isn’t. Ah, and there is also some event about the completion of the Daf Yomi cycle that they want to do here, I think. Is there? I don’t know, I need to check—they mentioned something, I don’t remember anymore.