Resources for Yevamos daf 95
1. The גמרא says that if a husband says he won’t give his wife who is a סוטה the סוטה water to drink, she becomes אסורה to him forever. תוספות in ד"ה אילימא wonders how the גמרא knew that the husband can’t change his mind at a later date? תוספות answers that we learn it from the fact that her מנחה is burnt once he says he won’t be משקה her. The מנחת חינוך in מצוה שס"ה אות י"ג explains the concept as follows: saying that he won’t be משקה her it is tantamount to admitting guilt. In other words, when a woman says איני שותה and then changes her mind to say she will drink, we don’t allow her to drink anymore since when she said she won’t drink we take that to mean she is sayingטמאה אני and she therefore remains בחזקת טמאה. Similarly, when a man says איני משקה we assume he is either admitting his own guilt that he sinned himself in which case the סוטה water doesn’t work, or that he knows that there are witnesses that she sinned. Either way, she remains בחזקת טמאה.
2. The גמרא brings that רב said that a יבמה is like an אשת איש which רב הונא explains to mean that if her husband is מקדש her and then goes off to מדינת הים and she hears he died and marries her יבם, when her husband comes back she is not allowed to marry him. רש"י in ד"ה ואמר רב הונא explains that if there had been a full נישואין to the original husband then she would have been מותרת to go back to her husband. The reason is that by an ארוסה we are afraid people will say there was a תנאי in the קידושין and she married the second husband for real and then he divorced her and she went back to the first brother which would be an איסור of גרושת אחיו. However, if she was a נשואה then everyone would know there was no תנאי in the קידושין in which case she couldn’t possibly have married the second brother, so people would figure out it must have been was a mistake and she thought he died. רש"י on דף פּ"ז ע"ב in ד"ה תצא מזה ומזה seems to contradict this. He says there that the reason we make a woman get divorced from both husbands when her husband shows up is because of a קנס that she should have checked better. The issue is if that were true then in our case of the lady who married her יבם even if she was a נשואה she wouldn’t be able to return to her husband since she obviously didn’t check well, so why does רש"י on our דף say she is מותרת to her first husband? The בית יוסף in the בדק הבית at the end of סימן קנ"ט asks this question and says that since רש"י in the משנה said its only a קנס דרבנן so we can be מיישב the two רש"יs but doesn’t explain how. However, he points out that the רי"ף doesn’t bring רב at all and theרמב"ם doesn’t bring the נשואה case which should mean that they disagree with רש"י and hold that even if she is a נשואה she should be אסורה to both men when her husband comes back. In שו"ע there in סעיף ד the מחבר doesn’t allow her to go back to her original husband if she accidentally married her יבם but the רמ"א does allow it. The בית שמואל there says the מחבר and רמ"א are arguing over the מחלוקת רי"ף ורא"ש from דף פּ"ט. The רא"ש in סימן א said that the reason a lady who gets married based on an עד אחד needs to get divorced from both men when the first husband shows up is because she needs a גט from her second “husband” who she mistakenly married and when people see that they will say that she got divorced from her first husband, then married the second husband, then got divorced from the second husband and is now trying to violate מחזור גרושתו. However, that חשש is not relevant by brothers since everyone will know that if the first brother divorced her she could not have married the second brother, in which case the רא"ש would say she can stay married to the first brother when he comes back (like רש"י on our דף). However, the רי"ף who says the reason a woman needs a divorce from both men is a קנס for not checking better (like רש"י in the first משנה ) would say that in this case as well she must divorce both brothers since she obviously didn’t check well.
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