Mishnah Eduyot 2-3

Masechet Eduyot, Perek Bet, Mishnah Gimel now brings the third and fourth testimonies that Rabbi Chanina Segan HaKohanim (the officer of the Kohanim) gave. The third testimony is about a certain document, shtar (document), that was used in connection with a person who was lending money and how that document was written up. Mishnah says, He also, Rabbi Chanina, testified about the following. There was a small village near Yerushalayim. And there was one older or elderly hacham, sage, who would lend money to all the people in that village. And he would write the loan document in his own handwriting. He would handle the writing of the document. He would give it to the borrowers in order that they should have record. And other people would sign the document. So the borrowers arranged for people who are qualified to be edim (witnesses), to sign on that document. And then the borrower would then return the document to the zaken, the sage, who would hold on to them as proof of the loans. It wasn't the normal way to do it. Usually, the loan document was written fully by the borrower, not by the lender. And this situation, the case of this type of document, came before the rabbis, and they allowed the practice of the lender himself writing the loan document. The document was okay, it was valid, even though it was written by the person who needed it. As long as the document was signed by qualified witnesses who could testify that everything was done correctly, and the borrower was involved in that process, everything is okay. From this testimony, we learn the following. A woman is allowed to write her own get (divorce document), that she's going to hand over to her husband, and then her husband could give to her and divorce her. And a man is allowed to write his own receipt in terms of proving that he paid the ketubah (marriage contract). Because the power of a document, of a get, or of the receipt that we're talking about is only established through the signers. The witnesses make it a real document. The fact that it was written by somebody becomes irrelevant. It's not about how it was written or who it was written by, but what makes it practical and usable is the fact, that it was signed by valid witnesses. That's the third testimony. Now we'll get into the fourth testimony. He also gave testimony about a needle that became tameh (ritually impure) from touching a dead body. That was found in the skin or in the basar, in the flesh, of a korban (sacrificial offering), when it was being cut up in the courtyard of the Beit HaMikdash. It wasn't known if the Kohen (priest) who cut up the basar or his knife touched the needle, and therefore, the Kohen became tameh. We don't really know. Or the knife itself. We don't know if he became tameh. What we say is the knife and the hands of the Kohen are pure, but the flesh is tameh. The Kohen and the knife are pure because we say that the chatzer, the temple courtyard, is a public area. And whenever we have a question in terms of tum'ah (ritual impurity) in a public area, the items of this question are assumed to have remained tahor (pure), to have hazakah (presumption), that they are, tahor. That's how we deal with the safek (question) case. But a vada'i case, an obvious for sure case, like the basar of the animal, which for sure touched the needle, that we treat as tameh. But the needle was found in the peresh, in the excrement, in the inside of the animal, everything, including the basar, is assumed to be tahor because the excrement that was there cannot become tameh. So therefore, it can't transmit tum'ah to anything else either.