Q&A: Contradiction as the Beginning of Refutation
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Contradiction as the Beginning of Refutation
Question
It is written in the verse, “And the king said: This one says, ‘This is my living son and your son is the dead one,’ and that one says, ‘No, your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.’” And it says in Ketubot that Rav Sheshet said: “‘This one says’—contradiction is the beginning of refutation,” meaning that this woman who contradicts her fellow is at the beginning of refutation, since these women were involved in sexual immorality. But this is difficult for me, since women are disqualified from testimony?
Answer
A disqualification does not take effect upon an existing disqualification, since her disqualification here is due to her being a litigant.
How can you say that one disqualification does not take effect upon another? In tractate Sukkah we maintain that sometimes both are disqualified—for example, when both of them have more shade than sun, and the upper one stands more than twenty cubits high.