Parshas Shelach 5785
- Torah Tavlin
- Jun 19
- 3 min read
שבועות דף מז:
"ב' כיתי עדים המכחישות זו את זו"
If 2 pairs of עדים contradict each other in ב"ד, which results in one of these pairs certainly lying, still ר' הונא says each pair may later testify in ב"ד regarding a different case. רש"י explains: even though one of these pairs is lying and should be פסול, since we don’t know which pair are the liars, they remain כשר to say עדות in the future. [ב"ב לא:] רשב"ם explains: אוקי גברא אחזקיה and they are כשר לעדות. Rav Elchanan zt”l explains [ב"ב אות קז']: we hold that a חזקה alone may not be מוציא ממון from a מוחזק. If so, how can we pasken that each pair may testify separately in ב"ד because we rely on their חזקת כשרות. If this נאמנות is based on חזקה how could this pair testify and be מוציא ממון? ר' אלחנן explains there are 2 steps. We use חזקה to establish that they are כשר לעדות. Now that they are viewed as valid witnesses, their testimony is now used להוציא ממון. ר' חסדא argues with ר' הונא and holds, since one of these pairs are lying and we don’t know which one it is, all 4 are not כשר to say עדות anymore. We also can’t say they are כשר because of their חזקה, because that would make all 4 כשר, which we know is not true. רש"י adds, that although ר' הונא permits each pair to testify in the future, it is not permissible for 1 עד from one כת to join with a עד from the other כת and testify together. Because ממ"נ one of these 2 is a שקרן. [חדושי ר' שמעון כתובות ס' מ'] ר' שמעון שקאפ brings the Gemara of [כתובות כז.] שני שבילין which seems to contradict our Gemara, but explains there is a difference. The case is that there are 2 roads, one is טהור and one is טמא, but we don’t know which is which. One person traveled on one of them and was עוסק בטהרות afterwards. Another person travelled on the other road and he was also עוסק בטהרות afterwards. The Gemara paskens, if they both come to ask Bais Din, but they come בזה אחר זה then we say they are both טהור, because מוקמינן אחזקה, even though both can’t be טהור. ר' שמעון שקאפ explains, in the case of 2 roads, each traveler has a personal ספק because of his own actions and nothing to do with the other traveler. They just happen to approach the same ב"ד. So, we say each retains his חזקת כשרות of being טהור. In our case of שתי כיתי עדים we must be דן both pairs together since the whole ספק came about because of their combined הכחשה. In this instance we can’t use חזקה, as part of them are certainly שקרנים. The [חו"מ ס' ל"א, א'] שו"ע paskens like ר' הונא that each pair retains their חזקת כשרות and may come separately later and testify in ב"ד. The [א] ש"ך brings that there was a מחלוקת גדול in בריסק regarding 2 single witnesses that come to ב"ד to testify and they contradicted each other, resulting in one of them being a שקרן. Does the same halacha apply and they both may not team up to say a future testimony? Or maybe our case is stricter because there are 2 contradicting pairs, which results in 1 from one pair being contradicted by 2 from the other. משא"כ by us it’s just one against one? The ש"ך concludes that they are פסולין לעדות אחרת and may not team up.וצריך ביאור .