The Eddie B. Sitt Edition and Audio Series of the Talmud Bavli, Tractate Yevamot, has been dedicated and sponsored by our dear friend Mr. Isaac Jamal and his wife, in honor of his family, and for his success and prosperity. May he raise his children in the ways of the Torah, may they bring him much satisfaction, and may he and his wife be blessed with many more children, health, and happiness. May he and his entire family be blessed in every way.
As a point of interest, many of the cases we study in Tractate Yevamot require diagrams. We have chosen Siyurim, Tractate Yevamot, written by Aaron Shlomo, son of Rabbi Baruch Moshe Hafner, as our source for the diagrams. It is available in the bookstore. When I refer to pages in the following discussion, I am using that work. We are currently studying nine lines from the top of the page.
In the discussion, we were learning about a woman and a man concerning whom rumors were circulating. Those rumors are called a persistent rumor. We discussed a rumor that continues without interruption, and we also discussed a rumor that eventually comes to an end.
We said that when there is a persistent rumor, even if there are no witnesses who actually saw any improper conduct between the man and the woman, she must divorce her husband, and she is forbidden to the man about whom the rumor circulated. If she went with that man—that is, if she married him—the law is that they must separate. This was the ruling regarding a rumor that continues without interruption.
The Gemara asks: How long must a rumor continue in order to be considered a persistent rumor? Abaye said, “My mother told me.” Some say that this refers to his nurse, because Abaye was an orphan. The rumor must circulate throughout the city for a day and a half. If people are discussing it for a day and a half, that is already considered a persistent rumor.
The Gemara then gives several conditions. This applies only when the rumor did not stop and then resume; it must continue for the entire day and a half without interruption. If it stopped in the middle, it is considered a rumor that came to an end because there was an interruption.
However, this is true only when the interruption cannot be attributed to an external factor. In other words, the interruption must have occurred under ordinary circumstances, and not because people became afraid to continue speaking. If we can attribute the interruption to fear—for example, the people spreading the rumor were afraid to continue speaking for some reason—then it is still considered a persistent rumor.
There is another condition: this applies only when the man has no enemies. If he does have enemies, then it is possible that his enemies are the ones spreading the rumor. In that case, we cannot rely on the rumor. The discussion therefore concerns a situation in which the rumor comes from ordinary people, not from the man’s enemies.
The Gemara quotes a Mishnah: If a man divorces his wife because of a bad reputation—that is, because a bad rumor circulated about her—he may not take her back. Similarly, if he divorces her because of a vow that she made, which makes it impossible for him to live with her, he may not subsequently take her back.
Rashi explains the reason for the ruling regarding a vow. In Tractate Gittin, he explains that if the man were permitted to remarry the woman, she might marry someone else, and then go to a rabbi who would find a basis for annulling her vow retroactively. One way to annul a vow is for the rabbi to find a circumstance that, had the woman known it originally, she would never have made the vow. If she says that she would not have made the vow under those circumstances, the rabbi can uproot the vow retroactively.
After the woman remarries, she may have the vow annulled. The first husband might then say, “Had I known that she would be able to have the vow annulled, even if they had offered me a hundred coins, I never would have divorced her. I really loved her.” By making that claim, he would effectively be seeking to invalidate his divorce retroactively. The children she had from her second marriage could then be considered illegitimate, because the first divorce would turn out not to have been a valid divorce.
How do we prevent this from happening? We tell the man at the outset: If you are divorcing your wife because of this vow, understand that you may never take her back. If you truly love her, go to a rabbi and try to obtain an annulment before divorcing her. Once he divorces her, we assume that he no longer wants to remain married to her, and we do not believe him when he later claims that he would not have divorced her had he known that the vow could be annulled.
If she marries someone else and subsequently has the vow annulled, we do not accept the first husband’s claim that he would never have divorced her had he known that this was possible. He had his opportunity; we told him from the beginning. Therefore, his claim is disregarded, she remains married to the second husband, and the children of that marriage are not rendered illegitimate.
The same applies when he divorced her because of a bad reputation. Can he take her back if the rumor later disappears? There is a concern that she may marry someone else, and that a second rumor may arise that nullifies the first one. The first husband might then say, “Had I known that the original rumor would be disproved, I never would have divorced her.” We therefore tell him from the beginning that although there is currently a rumor, there is a possibility that it will disappear. Once he divorces her, he may not take her back. We do not allow him to claim later that he would have acted differently. He already knew the circumstances from the outset, and he cannot change his mind afterward. Again, the purpose of this enactment was to prevent the children of a subsequent marriage from becoming illegitimate.
The Gemara raises a question. Rav Bar-Huna sent a message to Rav Bar-Hanaḥman: “Teach us, our Rabbi: If the man nevertheless remarries her after divorcing her in one of these two cases, what is the law? Do we force him to divorce her, or do we say that although the Rabbis initially prohibited him from remarrying her, after the fact the marriage is valid?”
The only way he could remarry her would be for him to say, “Had I known, I never would have divorced her,” thereby attempting to annul the divorce retroactively. The question is how far the Rabbis’ enactment extends. Do they force him to divorce her if he remarried her?
Rav Naḥman answered Rav Bar-Huna, “What is the question? We already learned this explicitly in the Mishnah.” The Mishnah states that there was a case involving a woman suspected of having relations with a married man. The court forced her first husband to divorce her. Even though the man about whom the rumors circulated subsequently married her, the court forced him to divorce her.
What is the logic? Why do we not want the man about whom the rumors circulated to marry the woman? Because by marrying her, he substantiates the rumor. Once rumors circulated about him and he eventually marries the woman, people will say, “You see? The rumors were true. Look, he ended up marrying her.” A person is not permitted to place himself in a situation that creates suspicion.
Similarly, when a man divorces his wife because of a bad reputation, the Rabbis forbid him to marry her again for the same reason. By divorcing her, what does he appear to be showing everyone? He appears to be saying that the rumor was true, and that he believed the rumor. Therefore, it makes sense that just as we force the man about whom the rumor circulated to divorce the woman because his marriage substantiates the rumor, we should likewise force this husband to divorce his wife if he remarried her.
The connection between the cases is as follows. In the Mishnah, we do not permit the man about whom the rumor circulated to remain married because he substantiates the original rumor. If he does marry her, we separate them. Similarly, in our case, when the husband initially divorced his wife, he appeared to be saying that the rumor was true. Once he remarries her, it is as though he is remaining married to a woman whom he himself had rendered forbidden to him. Therefore, perhaps we should also force him to divorce her.
The Gemara answers that the cases are not necessarily comparable. In the case of the Mishnah, there were witnesses. How do we know that there were witnesses? The language of the Mishnah says that the court forced the first husband to divorce her. The court intervenes only when there are witnesses. Therefore, of course, when there are witnesses, the man about whom the rumor circulated must divorce her; she is the wife of another man and is forbidden to him.
Here, however, the husband divorced her on his own. The rumors remained rumors; they were never substantiated by witnesses. Since he independently chose to divorce her, perhaps we will allow him to take her back. We therefore have no proof that simply because we do not allow the man about whom the rumor circulated to remain married, we likewise would not allow this husband to remain married.
The Gemara continues: What was Rav Bar-Huna’s comparison based on? He had a different version of the Mishnah. In his version, the Mishnah also said that the first husband divorced her on his own, without the court forcing him to do so. According to that version, there were no witnesses. The woman was forbidden to the man about whom the rumor circulated only by rabbinic law, and Rav Bar-Huna therefore compared the cases. Just as the man about whom the rumor circulated is forbidden to her by rabbinic law and must separate from her, perhaps this husband, who also acted without witnesses, should likewise be required to separate from her.
Nevertheless, the Gemara rejects the comparison. In the case of the Mishnah, the man about whom the rumor circulated is the man who had relations with her. When he marries her, it is degrading and suspicious because he is the very person about whom the rumor circulated. In our case, however, the husband himself is the one remarrying his wife. It is understandable that a husband may remarry a woman who was legally permitted to him. One could therefore say that the man about whom the rumor circulated is more severe than the original husband. The former is the subject of the rumor and is not even her husband, whereas the latter is her husband. The cases still differ.
Rav Bar-Huna and Rav Naḥman nevertheless said that the cases are comparable. In the first case, the Rabbis said that the man about whom the rumor circulated may not marry her, and if he married her, he must divorce her. Here, too, the Rabbis said that the original husband may not remarry her, and if he did marry her, he must divorce her. The mechanics are the same: in both cases, the Rabbis prohibited the marriage, and in both cases they required separation if the marriage nevertheless took place. Therefore, the law should be the same.
The Gemara again rejects the comparison. In the case of the man about whom the rumor circulated, when he remains married to the woman, he strengthens the rumor. He is the very man who had relations with her, so his marriage gives credibility to the rumor. In the case of the husband who remarries his wife, however, perhaps he investigated the rumors and discovered that they were false. That is why he took her back. There is therefore a basis for saying that he may remain married to her. His remaining married does not substantiate the rumor; on the contrary, it negates it. People may say that he must have investigated the matter and found that the rumor was untrue. Accordingly, the man about whom the rumor circulated may have to divorce her, while the original husband may be permitted to remain married to her.
The Gemara leaves the matter as a dispute, with arguments on both sides.
We now move to the next Mishnah. As an introduction, there is a rule that when a man writes a divorce document for his wife, he must write it for the sake of the particular people who are divorcing. When the scribe writes it, he must write it for the sake of this woman and for the sake of this husband.
In the Land of Israel, people were experts in this law concerning writing a divorce document for its intended purpose. Outside the Land of Israel, however, the scribes were not experts in this law. The Rabbis therefore enacted the following requirement: If an agent brings a divorce document from overseas, he must testify before the court and say, “It was written in my presence, and it was signed in my presence.” This allows us to ensure that the document was written for the sake of this particular woman. This requirement applies specifically to a document brought from overseas.
The Mishnah says that if a man brings a divorce document from overseas and testifies that it was written and signed in his presence, he may not marry the woman who was divorced with that document. Why not? It looks suspicious. It appears that he brought the document in order to marry the woman. After all, the document is effective only because of his testimony. The document itself is not sufficient; we require the agent’s testimony in order to validate it.
Since he is the one who makes the document effective, it would not look proper for him to marry the woman afterward. People might say that he testified falsely in order to create a situation in which he could marry her. Since we rely on his words, we are concerned that people will suspect that he provided false testimony for this purpose.
The Mishnah gives another case. A man comes and testifies that a woman’s husband died, thereby permitting her to remarry. Regarding this type of testimony, the Rabbis were lenient and allowed even one witness to testify. Thus, one man may say, “I saw that your husband died.” He may even say, “I killed him,” or, “We killed him,” meaning that he was part of a group that killed him. In all three cases, he may not marry the woman whose husband he reported dead.
Why not? Since the woman relies on his testimony in order to remarry, we are concerned that people will say, “He falsified his testimony so that he could marry this woman.” There will be a suspicion that he had his eye on her and invented the testimony for that reason.
The novelty of the ruling is that she may not marry the man who gave the testimony, but she may marry someone else. We believe the man when he says that her husband is dead; we simply do not permit her to marry the person who provided the testimony.
There is a distinction between the cases of “I killed him” and “We killed him.” The Gemara will explain why the Mishnah distinguishes between them. We therefore have a dispute between the first Tanna and Rabbi Yehuda. The first Tanna says that when a man says, “I killed him,” or, “We killed him,” he is not believed with respect to himself, but he is believed with respect to others. Rabbi Yehuda says that when he says, “I killed him,” he is not believed either for himself or for others. When he says, “We killed him,” however, he is believed with respect to others.
The Gemara first suggests that Rabbi Yehuda does not disagree in the case of “We killed him”; he disagrees only in the case of “I killed him.” Everyone agrees that none of the witnesses in these cases may marry the woman herself. The dispute concerns whether the woman may marry someone else.
Why is the man who says, “I killed him,” not believed even for others? Because by giving that testimony, he makes himself a wicked person. We are not permitted to accept testimony from a wicked person. His testimony is therefore rejected, both with respect to himself and with respect to someone else.
The Gemara begins its analysis with the first ruling of the Mishnah. If a man comes from overseas with a divorce document and says that it was written and signed in his presence, the document is valid, but he may not marry the woman. The reason is that the document comes from overseas, where we rely on the agent’s testimony. The document requires validation through his words, because it is necessary to establish that it was written for the sake of this woman.
If, however, he brings the document from the Land of Israel, we are not relying on him. He is merely a courier; the document speaks for itself. We do not require his testimony to validate it, and therefore he may marry the woman.
The Gemara asks: What about the man who testifies that the husband died? There, too, we are not relying entirely on his testimony. We have a teaching that when a man says that a woman’s husband died, we permit her to remarry because a woman investigates carefully before remarrying. She examines the matter and makes sure that it is true. Therefore, it is not entirely because of the man’s testimony that she remarries; it is also because of the woman’s own investigation. Why, then, does the Mishnah say that he may not marry her? Why is this different from the agent who brings a divorce document from the Land of Israel, where we say that he may marry her because we do not rely on him?
The Gemara answers that there is a difference between the cases. In the case of the man who reports that the husband died, there is no document. The matter is based on his words. Although we do not rely on his testimony in every respect, we rely on his words to some degree. In the case of the divorce document, however, there is written evidence. The document itself speaks for itself, and the agent merely delivered it.
When the document comes from the Land of Israel, we do not need the agent to say that it was written and signed in his presence, because the courts in the Land of Israel were expert in the law that a divorce document must be written for its intended purpose. He only has to deliver the document. Since there is written evidence, he is removed from the matter, and there is no concern that he is creating the divorce in order to marry the woman.
When he says that the husband died, however, even though the woman can ultimately remarry because she investigates the matter, the information is still coming from his words. There is no document apart from his testimony. It is therefore too close to him, and we do not allow him to marry her because of the suspicion.
The Gemara brings support for this distinction from another Mishnah. In certain cases, we accept the testimony of women who bring a divorce document from overseas, even though women are generally not accepted as witnesses for this purpose. However, we do not accept their testimony that a husband died. The Gemara asks: If we trust a woman regarding a divorce document, why should we not trust her regarding the death of a husband?
The answer is that when she testifies about the divorce document, there is a document in addition to her testimony. The written document speaks for itself to some extent. When she testifies that the husband died, there is no document; the matter depends entirely on her words. This demonstrates the distinction between written evidence and testimony without written evidence.
The same applies here. When the agent brings a divorce document from the Land of Israel, he is not making the divorce effective. The document itself does that, so he may marry the woman. When he reports that the husband died, however, the matter is partially dependent on his words. Therefore, there is a suspicion, and he may not marry her.
The Gemara returns to the ruling that a man who says, “The husband died,” “I killed him,” or, “We killed him,” may not marry the woman. The wording implies that although he may not marry her, someone else may. The Gemara asks about this implication in light of a statement of Rav Yosef.
Rav Yosef discussed a case in which a man testified, “So-and-so had a forbidden relationship with me against my will.” A person who forcibly compels another man to engage in such a relationship is liable to a severe punishment. This witness wants to testify against the other man, and he says that he and another witness can combine to have the other man punished.
Rav Yosef distinguishes between two cases. If the witness says, “He had the forbidden relationship with me against my will,” then he is not declaring himself wicked, because he was the victim. He can therefore combine with another witness. If, however, he says, “He had the forbidden relationship with me willingly,” then he is declaring himself wicked, because he is admitting that he participated willingly in a forbidden act. The Torah says that a wicked person may not serve as a witness. His testimony is therefore disqualified.
The Gemara asks: According to Rav Yosef, how can we understand the Mishnah? When a man says, “I killed him,” he is declaring himself a murderer. He is a wicked person and should therefore be disqualified as a witness. If so, how can the Mishnah imply that he is believed with respect to allowing the woman to marry someone else?
Perhaps one could answer that testimony concerning a woman’s ability to remarry is a special category in which the Rabbis were lenient. We accept even one witness, and in certain situations we accept the testimony of a woman. The reason is that the Rabbis did not want a woman to remain abandoned, uncertain whether her husband was alive or dead. As long as she does not know his status, she remains unable to remarry. The Rabbis were therefore lenient regarding testimony about a husband’s death. Perhaps, even though we ordinarily do not accept the testimony of a wicked person, we accept it in this special category.
The Gemara rejects that answer based on a statement of Rav Menashe. Rav Menashe said that a person who steals in a manner prohibited only by rabbinic law is considered a thief by rabbinic law, but he is still qualified to testify in a case where a woman’s testimony would be accepted. For example, a gambler who plays with dice and wagers money is not necessarily stealing according to Torah law. If he loses, he appears to have willingly handed over the money. Nevertheless, because he never truly expected to lose, the money is not considered to have been transferred wholeheartedly. This is a case of relying on an assumption that does not materialize, and the money is therefore considered taken improperly by rabbinic law.
Rav Menashe says that such a person is qualified to testify wherever a woman would be qualified to testify. Thus, regarding testimony that a husband died, where the Rabbis accepted the testimony of a woman, they also accepted the testimony of a person who is considered a thief only by rabbinic law. A thief who violates Torah law, however, is disqualified from testimony, including testimony concerning a woman’s ability to remarry.
What do we see from this? Rav Menashe holds that there is no leniency regarding a person who violated a Torah prohibition. The leniency applies only to someone who is disqualified by rabbinic law. Returning to the Mishnah, the man who says, “I killed him,” is admitting to a Torah-level offense. He should therefore be disqualified as a witness. How, then, can the Mishnah imply that his testimony is accepted with respect to someone else?
The Gemara first answers that Rav Menashe may follow Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion in the Mishnah. Rabbi Yehuda says that when a man says, “I killed him,” the woman may not marry anyone. Therefore, Rav Menashe can be understood as agreeing with Rabbi Yehuda that a person who admits to a Torah-level offense is entirely disqualified as a witness.
According to this explanation, the dispute between the first Tanna and Rabbi Yehuda is whether they accept Rav Menashe’s principle. The first Tanna says that even though the man is disqualified by Torah law, he may still be believed regarding another person. Rabbi Yehuda accepts Rav Menashe’s principle and says that because the man has disqualified himself by admitting to murder, his testimony cannot be accepted for anyone.
The Gemara offers another way to understand the matter. It says that one can even explain the first Tanna according to Rav Menashe, based on the principle that a person’s statement can be divided. Rav’s principle is that a person is considered related to himself. Just as a relative cannot testify, a person cannot testify about himself. Whatever he says about himself, whether favorable or unfavorable, is not accepted in court.
However, what he says about someone else can be accepted. Therefore, when he says, “I killed him,” we do not believe the part of his testimony that incriminates himself. But we can believe the part that establishes that the other man died. His words are divided: we reject his admission that he was the murderer, but we accept his statement that the husband was killed.
Returning to the Mishnah, we do not accept the man’s testimony for the purpose of allowing him to marry the woman, because he is incriminating himself. But we do accept his testimony that the husband died. Once we establish that the husband died, the woman may marry someone else. According to this approach, even the first Tanna can agree with Rav Menashe, using the principle that a person’s words may be divided.
The remaining question concerns Rav Yosef. Rav Yosef does not accept this division of the testimony. According to Rav Yosef, when a person says, “So-and-so had a forbidden relationship with me willingly,” he is a wicked person, and we do not divide his words. His testimony is entirely rejected. How, then, can Rav Yosef explain the Mishnah’s implication that the witness is believed with respect to someone else?
The Gemara answers that the only way to reconcile Rav Yosef with the Mishnah is to say that Rav Yosef follows Rabbi Yehuda, who says that when the man says, “I killed him,” the woman may not marry anyone. Rav Yosef would therefore say that the witness’s testimony is entirely rejected in that case.
The Gemara then suggests that perhaps Rav Yosef can even follow the first Tanna. Rav Yosef could agree that, generally, a person who incriminates himself is not accepted as a witness. However, in the case of the Mishnah, the Rabbis may rely on the principle that the testimony is divided, accepting the statement that the husband died while rejecting the witness’s admission that he killed him.
According to the final understanding, everyone may accept the general principle stated by Rav Menashe. The dispute is whether that principle applies in this particular case. Rabbi Yehuda says that it applies fully: when a man says, “I killed him,” he is disqualified for all purposes. The first Tanna agrees with the principle but says that, in the laws of testimony concerning a woman’s remarriage, the Rabbis were lenient and accepted the testimony with respect to others.
The Gemara continues by noting that the principle that a person cannot incriminate himself applies when he is seeking to impose a punishment such as lashes or another penalty imposed by the court. It does not apply in the same way to monetary matters. A person can incriminate himself financially. For example, he can say, “I owe this person money,” and he is believed regarding that obligation.
The Mishnah says that according to Rabbi Yehuda, when the witness says, “I killed him,” the woman may not remarry, but when he says, “We killed him,” she may marry someone else. The Gemara asks: What is the difference? In the second case, too, the witness was part of the group that killed the husband. He should still be a wicked person, and his testimony should be rejected.
Rav Yehuda explains that when the man says, “We killed him,” he may mean, “I was present with the people who killed him,” not, “I personally participated in the murder.” In that case, he is not necessarily declaring himself wicked. Therefore, although he may not marry the woman himself, his testimony can be accepted with respect to others.
The Gemara brings a story as support for this interpretation. The Rabbis once told Rabbi Yehuda that there had been a case involving a certain thief who was being executed at the crossroads of Kapotkiya. Before the man was put to death, he said, “Go to the wife of Shimon ben Kohen and tell her that when I entered the city of Lod, I killed her husband.” Some versions read that he said, “When I entered the city of Lod.” The Rabbis permitted the woman to remarry. This appears to support the first Tanna, since the witness was himself a thief, yet his testimony was accepted concerning the husband’s death.
Rabbi Yehuda responded that this does not constitute proof. All the man said was that he had been with the murderers. He did not say that he personally killed the husband. Therefore, he did not incriminate himself in the murder, and his testimony could be accepted according to Rabbi Yehuda.
The Gemara challenges Rabbi Yehuda further. The story refers to the man as a thief. A thief is a wicked person. Even if he did not participate in the murder, how could the Rabbis accept his testimony at all? According to Rabbi Yehuda, a wicked person should not be accepted as a witness in any matter.
The Gemara answers that the term “thief” in the story means that he was captured together with a group of thieves; it does not necessarily mean that he himself was a thief. The non-Jewish authorities were executing him, and non-Jewish authorities may execute a person for any reason without carefully investigating his status. Therefore, the man was not necessarily a wicked person under Jewish law, and his testimony could be accepted.
This supports Rabbi Yehuda’s explanation of the Mishnah. When the witness says, “We killed him,” he may mean that he was present with the group that killed the husband, but that he himself did not kill him. He is therefore not disqualified as a wicked person, and the woman may marry someone else, although she may not marry him.
The Mishnah continues with another case. A woman made a vow prohibiting herself from receiving any benefit from her husband. The husband did not annul the vow, so she went before a sage to have the vow annulled. The sage could not find a basis for annulling it. The law is therefore that she must be divorced.
The Mishnah says that the sage who attempted to annul the vow may not marry the woman. The reason is suspicion. People may say that the sage deliberately failed to find a basis for annulling the vow because he wanted her to become divorced, so that he could then marry her. To keep himself above suspicion, he may not marry her.
If, however, he participated in the court before which a minor performed the ceremony of refusal, he may marry the girl. This ceremony allows a minor to end her marriage without a regular divorce document. Similarly, if he participated in a court before which a woman underwent the ceremony that releases her from a levirate marriage, he may marry her.
Why is this permitted? Because he was only one member of the court. Both of these ceremonies must be performed before three judges. We do not suspect that all three judges conspired together in order to free the woman so that this particular judge could marry her. There may be suspicion regarding one person, but not regarding three people acting together.
The Gemara asks about a related implication. Suppose a sage permitted a woman to return to her husband after attempting to annul her vow, and the husband subsequently died. The implication of the Mishnah is that the sage may then marry her. In this case, there should be no suspicion, because the sage brought the woman back to her husband, and only afterward did the husband die.
Rashi asks what the precise case is. If we are speaking about a single sage, one sage cannot annul a vow by himself; a minimum of three judges is required. If the case involves three judges, then there should be no suspicion even when the sage participated in the original proceeding, because the Mishnah already taught that there is no suspicion regarding a court of three.
The Gemara answers that the case may involve one sage who is an expert in this field and is therefore able to annul the vow alone. The Mishnah’s implication is that if the expert prohibited the woman from returning to her husband, he may not marry her. But if the same expert permitted her to return to her husband, and the husband later died, he may marry her. In that case, there is no suspicion that he deliberately acted to free her for himself.
The Gemara returns to the cases of the minor’s refusal and the ceremony releasing a woman from a levirate marriage. The Mishnah says that these procedures are performed before a court. This teaches that the court consists of three people. Two people are not sufficient for these procedures.
The Gemara asks why the distinction matters. Just as we do not suspect three people, perhaps we should not suspect two people either. For example, when two witnesses sign a document transferring ownership of a field, the Rabbis do not suspect that those witnesses will later seek to marry the woman named in the document. Similarly, when two witnesses sign a divorce document, we do not say that neither of them may marry the woman merely because their names appear on the document.
The Gemara answers that, in general, two people are also not subject to this suspicion. The Mishnah is teaching an additional point: there is an opinion that the ceremony of refusal by a minor may be performed before two people. The Mishnah teaches that this ceremony must in fact be performed before three.
Thus, regarding the general law of suspicion, two people are sufficient to avoid the concern. The Mishnah goes out of its way to teach that the ceremony of refusal, as well as the ceremony releasing a woman from a levirate marriage, requires three judges. It rejects the opinion that two are sufficient.
The Gemara then raises a final question concerning the sages who were prohibited from marrying the women involved. In the first case, the sage who was unable to annul the vow may not marry the woman because of suspicion. What is the law if he nevertheless married her? Must they separate, or may they remain married?
The same question applies to the agent who brought a divorce document from overseas. Since the document became effective through his testimony that it was written and signed in his presence, he was prohibited from marrying the woman because of suspicion. If he nevertheless married her, must they separate?
Rav Kahana said that if he married her, they must separate. Rav Ashi disagreed and said that if he married her, he need not separate. Rav Zutra of the academy of Rav Pappa taught in accordance with the opinion that he need not separate.
The Rabbis asked Rav Ashi, “Did you arrive at this ruling through a tradition, or is it based on your reasoning?” He replied, “It is taught explicitly in the Mishnah.” The previous Mishnah discussed a man about whom there were rumors that he had relations with a maidservant, or with a non-Jewish woman who subsequently became Jewish. Even after she became Jewish, he was initially told not to marry her, because doing so would lend credibility to the rumors. Nevertheless, if he did marry her, they were permitted to remain together.
The logic is that when there are only rumors and talk, we do not uproot an existing marriage after the fact. We initially tell the man not to marry her because we do not want him to strengthen the rumors. But if he nevertheless married her, we allow the marriage to continue.
The same should apply here. The sage did not necessarily do anything wrong; there were merely rumors that he had arranged the circumstances in order to free the woman so that he could marry her. We therefore tell him not to marry her because we do not want to strengthen the rumors. But if he did marry her, we do not force them to separate. The principle is that we do not dissolve a marriage solely on the basis of rumors.
This differs from the earlier case involving a married woman and actual witnesses. There, the evidence was substantiated, and the court had a stronger basis for requiring separation. Here, the matter is only a suspicion or a rumor. Therefore, if the marriage already took place, we allow it to continue.
May the One who created the world grant us success in understanding and applying these teachings.