Q&A: Women's Testimony in Matters of Prohibition
Women's Testimony in Matters of Prohibition
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
I came across a strange Talmudic passage that discusses a woman's testimony regarding the search for leaven:
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Pesachim 4a
"Everyone is believed regarding the destruction of leaven, even women, even slaves, even minors. What is the reason they are believed? Is it not because it is presumed to have been checked? For he holds: everyone is considered reliable with respect to the search for leaven. As it was taught: If a haver died and left a storehouse full of produce, even if it was gathered that very day, it is presumed to have been properly tithed. And from where do you know that? Perhaps here it is different because these people are saying so. But does the statement of these people have any substance at all? Rather, what then? That it is presumed checked? If so, why say: 'Everyone is believed'? It should have said: 'All houses are presumed checked on the fourteenth'! Rather, what then? Because of the statement of these people? Then if these people did not say so, no? Let us derive from this that it is not presumed checked! No, actually I could say to you that it is presumed checked, and what are we dealing with here? A case where we know that he did not check, and these people say: 'We checked it.' You might have said: the rabbis should not believe them. Therefore it teaches us: since the search for leaven is rabbinic, for on the Torah level nullification alone is sufficient, the rabbis believed them in a rabbinic matter."
After looking into the commentators, I thought the Talmud should be understood this way: women are not believed even in matters of prohibition, and when they said that one witness is believed in matters of prohibition, they meant a witness whose word can be relied upon. But regarding women, apparently the Sages understood that they are too quick to be lenient, and therefore one cannot rely on their word even in matters of prohibition. Only in the search for leaven, which is rabbinic, were they lenient and allowed reliance on them. And this seemingly raises a difficulty about the common practice of relying on women's testimony in matters of prohibition. I thought to answer that in fact an ordinary woman is invalid for testimony in matters of prohibition, but regarding a man's wife, since there is closeness and trust between spouses, only her husband is allowed to rely on her in matters of prohibition (or perhaps his authority over her prevents her from lying to him in matters of prohibition).
Answer
It is an established rule in Jewish law that a woman is believed in matters of prohibition everywhere that one witness is believed. In fact, the very credibility of one witness in matters of prohibition is learned from the credibility of a woman who says she has become purified from her impurity. So none of this is relevant.
As for the Talmudic passage itself, some commentators (Pnei Yehoshua on Rashi here, at the end of the first amud) wanted, because of your difficulty, to explain that the question is only about minors and not about a woman. But Pnei Yehoshua writes that Rashi implies otherwise. And it seems from Tosafot, s.v. "Is it not because," that there is a rule requiring one to ask the homeowner, and therefore the credibility of one witness alone is not enough here (and therefore not that of a woman either), except where there is a presumption that it was checked.
It is also possible to say that women are considered lazy in this matter (they do not allow them to do the search itself), and therefore they have no credibility here because it is not "in their hands" to do it (see Rabbi Shmuel's lectures here). Regarding women being "lazy," see Rabbi Zeיני's interesting explanation:
http://www.orvishua.org.il/heb/files/art/1332958446.pdf
Discussion on Answer
That is a possible distinction, and maybe others like it could be suggested too. But I do not see any basis for it, nor any logic to it.
Beyond that, testimony that she has become purified is also similar to testimony about obligations.
According to what you are saying, if someone had a son and his wife took care of circumcising him (either herself or by hiring a mohel), and the husband did not know about it until the eighth day after the circumcision, and afterward she told him that she had already taken care of the commandment of circumcision, may he rely on what she says? After all, it says one witness is believed in matters of prohibition (and not in a matter that is not a prohibition).
I just now thought of a rationale to distinguish between credibility regarding prohibitions and credibility regarding obligations: since prohibitions are more severe than obligations, people are more careful about them and more afraid to lie about them. You can see this principle in terumah and tithes: regarding terumah, an am ha'aretz is believed because it is more severe (from his perspective), whereas regarding tithes he is not believed because they are less severe (from his perspective).
By the same logic, one could say that prohibitions are more severe and therefore require a higher standard. Especially since here we are dealing with an obligation whose whole purpose is preventing a prohibition (like a menstruant woman's immersion). And above all, I would expect such a fundamental principle to appear explicitly or implicitly in many more places.
There is a passage in Sotah from which it seems that the more severe a matter is, the more credibility there is regarding it (that is, a lower threshold of credibility is required from the one testifying about it):
Tractate Sotah 48a
"He too abolished the confession and decreed concerning demai, because he sent throughout all the borders of Israel and saw that they separated only terumah gedolah, while some tithed the first tithe and second tithe and some did not tithe them. He said to them: My sons, come and I will tell you: just as terumah gedolah carries liability for death, so too terumat ma'aser and untithed produce carry liability for death. He arose and instituted for them that one who buys produce from an am ha'aretz must separate from it the first tithe and the second tithe."
And one could argue that this distinction appears explicitly in the words: "One witness is believed in matters of prohibition" — specifically in matters of prohibition, and not in matters of obligation.
A similar rationale exists regarding the presumption that a woman examines herself carefully before marrying.
But this should have been explicit and have many practical ramifications. These are inferences that are not at all compelling.
I looked again at Rashi, s.v. "In a rabbinic matter" — "the rabbis believed them regarding an obligation that exists only on the rabbinic level, for they imposed it and they allowed reliance on the statement of these people, and they have the authority to deem them credible in a matter that is not Torah-level."
And I thought to distinguish between credibility regarding prohibitions and credibility regarding obligations. In matters of prohibition, women are believed, whereas in obligations that require positive action they are not believed (except in rabbinic obligations).