Kiddushin 74a — the Talmud in English

And we raised it:

“And let us see: from whom did he take the coins?”

It appears that this means: let us ask the seller from whom he received the money. For he certainly remembers from whom he received the money—even after the purchase has left his possession. And on this basis we will know to whom he sold, for he certainly sold to the one who gave the money. And why is the seller not trustworthy after the purchase has left his possession?

And we answer:

“It is not necessary.”

It is speaking here of a case such as

“he took”

the seller received

“coins from both of them, and said: one”

gave me the money

“willingly”

of my own will

“and one”

gave me

“against my will.”

And

since the purchase is no longer in his possession, he already

“does not know”

the seller does not remember

“which”

of them

“gave it to him willingly, and which”

gave it to him

“not willingly.”

And the Gemara brings the continuation of that same beraita: two litigants, each of whom says, “I was declared entitled in the judgment!”

Trusted

is the

judge to say: “I declared this”

litigant

“entitled, and I declared this”

litigant

“liable!”

“In what case is this statement said”

that the judge is trusted? When

“the litigants”

are still

“standing before him.”

For as long as they have not left him, he must still remember whom he declared entitled and whom he declared liable.

“But”

if already

“the litigants are not standing before him, he is not trusted,”

because after they have left him, he is no longer required to remember the judgment.

And we raised it:

“And let us see: who is holding the document of entitlement!?”

Let us check who is holding the document of the judgment of entitlement in his hand; what room is there to be uncertain about this?

And we answer:

“It is not necessary; it was torn”

the document of

“their entitlement.”

And again we wonder: for what purpose must he be believed as to whom he declared entitled?

“And let him return and judge them!”

For the judge can judge them again, and through this it will become clear who is liable and who is entitled.

And we answer: with what are we dealing here?

“With the judge’s discretion.”

In a case in which there was no way to decide the judgment according to the laws of monetary claims. And in such a case, the judgment is issued according to the judge’s assessment, and he has the authority to declare entitled whichever person the judge’s heart inclines him to say appears to be the owner of the money.

And once he has ruled in favor of one of them, he is no longer permitted to retract. Therefore the litigants do not agree to be judged anew, lest now his heart incline to the other side.

Rav Nahman said: Three are trusted

to testify

“about the”

child that he is a

“firstborn”

to receive a double portion in his father’s inheritance. And

“these are: the midwife”

the woman who delivers the child

“his father, and his mother.”

The

midwife

is trusted only

immediately,

close to the birth. And this law was already explained above.

His mother

is trusted to testify concerning him

for seven days

from the birth. For his father still does not recognize him. For he has not yet left his mother’s hands to enter the covenant. But from the time his father recognizes him, his mother is no longer trusted.

And his father

is trusted concerning him

forever.

And this trustworthiness is required by a teaching from the Torah.

As it was taught:

It is written [Deuteronomy 21:17]: “For he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the hated one, to give him a double portion.” And we expound:

“He shall acknowledge”—

“He shall make him known to others!”

That is, the father shall testify concerning him to others that he is the firstborn; from here we learn that the Torah granted a special power of trustworthiness concerning his son.

“From here Rabbi Judah said: A person is trusted to say: ‘This’

is

“my son,”

the

“firstborn!”

“And just as he is trusted to say”

“This is my firstborn son,”

“so”

also

“he is trusted”

to disqualify him, and the father

“can say”

the priest-father

“‘This”

is my son

“is the son of a divorced woman, and this is the son of a woman released through halitza,’”

and he will be trusted to disqualify him from the priesthood.

“And the Sages say”:

Although the father is trusted concerning his son to say that he is a firstborn,

“he is not trusted”

to say concerning him that he is the son of a divorced woman and to disqualify him from the priesthood.

We learned in the Mishna:

“Abba Saul would call a shtuki” -

“a beduki.”

And we raised it:

“What”

“is a beduki?”

“If you say that they examine his mother”

and ask her from whom she became pregnant, and

“she says,”

“I had intercourse with a fit man,”

and she is trusted thereby to establish the child’s fitness—

And

“according to whom”

does Abba Saul hold?

“According to Rabban Gamaliel,”

in tractate Ketubot, who said: she is trusted! This cannot be said.

For we already

“learned”

this law

“once,”

and for what purpose did Rabbi repeat it here? He should have brought Abba Saul adjacent to the words of Rabban Gamaliel, and said that Abba Saul also holds this way.

“For we learned”

in tractate Ketubot: A single woman who

“was pregnant, and they said to her:”

“What is the nature of this fetus?”

“And she said to them: ‘From a certain man”

I became pregnant,

“and he is a priest”

that is, of distinguished and fit lineage—

“Rabban Gamaliel and Rabbi Eliezer say:

She is

“trusted.”

And the Gemara assumed that she is trusted concerning her own fitness, and likewise they establish the child’s fitness on her word.

“And Rabbi Joshua says: ‘We do not live from her mouth.’”

She is not trusted to establish him as fit; rather, he is disqualified by uncertainty, like a shtuki.

“And Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: The halakha is according to Rabban Gamaliel,”

that she is trusted.

And we answer: Rabbi needed to teach this law twice:

“one, to establish her as fit, and one, to establish her daughter as fit.”

For in that Mishna Rabban Gamaliel trusted her only concerning herself. If she had intercourse with a person disqualified from the priesthood or with someone forbidden to her, she becomes forbidden to marry a priest; and likewise, if she is the daughter of a priest, she becomes forbidden to eat teruma. Concerning this Rabban Gamaliel said: she is trusted to say, “I had intercourse with a fit man,” and she is not thereby profaned from the priesthood, since her definite claim combines with her presumption of fitness.

But she is not trusted to say that she became pregnant from a fit man, with regard to establishing the fetus’s fitness [if it is female] to marry a priest, since the fetus has no presumption of fitness.

And it is specifically concerning herself that she is trusted, because she has a presumption of fitness. For before she had intercourse with him, she was certainly fit. But the fetus never had a presumption of fitness.

And concerning this Abba Saul added in our Mishna that the mother is trusted to say even concerning the child that he is fit.

And we ask again:

“This works according to the one who says”

there in Ketubot that even

“according to the words of”

Rabban Gamaliel, who

“establishes”

“her”

as fit and believes that she had intercourse with a fit man, he

“disqualifies her daughter,”

because the daughter has no presumption of fitness, we are concerned that her father was disqualified, as explained. It is well that the tanna added Abba Saul’s view in our Mishna, which disagrees with Rabban Gamaliel and establishes her daughter as fit as well.

“But according to the one who says”

there:

“according to the words of”

Rabban Gamaliel, who

“establishes her”

as fit, he

“also establishes her daughter as fit,”

if so,

“Abba Saul”—

“what does he come to teach us?”

Have we not already heard this from Rabban Gamaliel’s words?

And we answer:

“Abba Saul’s [teaching] is superior to Rabban Gamaliel’s.”

From Abba Saul’s words we hear a greater innovation than from Rabban Gamaliel’s words.

“For if it were from there,”

from Rabban Gamaliel,

“I would have said”

specifically

“there”

Rabban Gamaliel established her and the fetus as fit because it was speaking of a place where

“the majority”

of the people there

“are fit with regard to her.”

For example, she is single, and most of the city’s inhabitants are fit for the priesthood and are not disqualified priests.

“But where the majority”

of the people of the place

“are disqualified with regard to her,”

for example, she is betrothed, and apart from the betrothed all people are forbidden to her on account of being a married woman; or even if she is single, in a case where most of the city’s inhabitants are disqualified from the priesthood,

“I would say: no,”

she would not be trusted to testify against the majority, which determines that she had intercourse with a disqualified man.

Therefore,

“it is necessary”

for Abba Saul to teach us that even against a majority of disqualified men she is trusted to say that she had intercourse with a fit man.

“Rava said: The halakha is according to Abba Saul!”

“Mishna:”

“All those forbidden to enter the congregation,”

such as mamzerim, netinim, shtukim, and foundlings,

“are permitted to enter one with another.”

Even a definite mamzer, who is certainly disqualified, is permitted to marry shtukim and foundlings, whose disqualification is uncertain. For the Torah prohibited a mamzer only with a definite congregation, and not with a congregation of uncertain status.

“Rabbi Judah prohibits.”

His position will be explained in the Gemara.

“Rabbi Eliezer”

“says: Their definites”

the definite ones among the disqualified

“with their definites,”

the disqualified ones,

“are permitted.”

For example, a mamzer and a netin who are both certainly disqualified from the congregation are permitted to marry one another.

But

“their definites”

the definite ones among the disqualified

“with their uncertainties,”

such as a mamzer and a netin with a female shtuki and a female foundling—

“And”

likewise

“their uncertainties with their definites,”

such as a male shtuki and a male foundling with a female mamzeret and a female netina—

“And”

likewise

“their uncertainties with their uncertainties,”

such as a shtuki with a shtuki, or a foundling with a foundling, or a shtuki with a foundling, or a foundling with a shtuki—

For all these, it is

“forbidden”

to marry one another, lest one of them be disqualified and the other fit. For Rabbi Eliezer holds that a mamzer is forbidden even with a congregation of uncertain status.

“And these are the uncertainties: a shtuki”—

whose father is unknown, and perhaps he is disqualified;

“a foundling”—

whose father and mother are unknown, and perhaps they are disqualified;

“and a Cuthean”—

they are the children of a people whom Sennacherib brought from Cuthah and settled in the cities of Samaria, and who converted out of fear of the lions that the Lord sent against them. What their uncertainty is will be explained in the Gemara.

“Gemara:”

We learned in the Mishna: all those forbidden to enter the congregation are permitted to marry one another.

And we raised it:

“What is meant by ‘all those forbidden to enter the congregation’?”

“If you say: mamzerim, netinim, a shtuki, and a foundling?”

“This”

was already

“taught at the beginning”

in the preceding Mishna:

“Mamzerim, netinim, a shtuki, and a foundling are permitted to marry one another.”

Why was it necessary to teach this law again?

“And furthermore,”

there is a difficulty: if so, what does he teach:

“Rabbi Judah prohibits,”

“concerning what”

did Rabbi Judah disagree and prohibit?

“If you say: the definites with the uncertainties,”

Rabbi Judah disagreed and prohibited a mamzer with a shtuki and a foundling, this cannot be said.

For

“from the fact that he teaches”

in the

“end: ‘Rabbi Eliezer says: Their definites with their definites are permitted; their definites with their uncertainties and their uncertainties with their uncertainties are forbidden,’”

“by inference, Rabbi Judah does not hold this way,”

but he permits even a definite mamzer with an uncertain mamzer.

“And if you say”

that what he teaches,

“‘Rabbi Judah prohibits’”

applies

“to a convert with a mamzeret,”

and Rabbi Judah follows his own position [72b], that “a congregation of converts” is also called a congregation, and they too are forbidden with a mamzeret—this cannot be explained.

For

“is it the case”

that

“a convert”

is permitted

“with a mamzeret”

“that he teaches”

in the words of the first tanna, so that it could be said that Rabbi Judah disagreed about this?

But

“‘all those forbidden to enter the congregation’”

are permitted to marry one another

“is what he teaches!”

And a convert is not included, for he is permitted to enter the congregation.