Resources for Yevamos daf 120

1.     The משנה says that you can’t be מעיד that a person died unless you saw the פּרצוף פּנים with the חוטם and the גמרא adds the פּדחת as well. And even then, only if you see the מת within three days of death. That sets the bar somewhat high. תוספות in ד"ה אין מעידין lowers it considerably. ר"ת there says that if the whole body is there then you don’t need the face. He also says that perhaps we only need the face when using סימנים, but if you have a טביעות עין then you don’t need the face at all. This second line is not clear as it sounds like ר"ת is saying that the משנה that allows עדות based on the פּרצוף פּנים alone is talking about where there is no טביעות עין whatsoever. That would be hard to hear since our גמרא says that the משנה is talking about סימנים that aren’t מובהקים like being tall and short in which case if you have no טביעות עין then how is your עדות valid? There is a מחלוקת אחרונים as to what ר"ת meant. The שב שמעתתא in שמעתתא ז פּרק י"ג brings the מוהרח"ש who says that ר"ת meant that the משנה is referring to someone who doesn’t know the deceased personally but recognizes him by sight. In that case, proper sight of the face is critical and you need to see the whole face for it to be a valid עדות. However, a real friend would not require anything other than a טביעות עין and it would work even after three days. The שב שמעתתא disagrees and says that based on what the בה"ג wrote (which is what ר"ת is based on), what ר"ת meant is that the משנה is referring to a case where the people who saw the deceased man had never seen him before in their lives. They were just describing him based on what they saw and others who did know him said that must be ראובן. In that case you need the whole face and it needs to be seen within three days and that is sufficient to describe someone (he considers even a סימן בינוני to be sufficient when referring to a face). However, anyone with a טביעות עין would be believed just by saying they recognized him.

Most ראשונים disagree with ר"ת. The רשב"א and ריטב"א argue with ר"ת based on the fact that the משנה doesn’t say that טביעת עין helps! However, ר"ת understood the משנה to be talking about a case where there was no טביעת עין to speak of.

2.     ר"ת also says that if there is an ספק if it is within three days you can be מקיל. The ריטב"א agrees with him but the רשב"א disagrees. The מחלוקת ריטב"א and רשב"א is that the רשב"א says we should say ספק דאורייתא לחומרא and since we aren’t sure when he died we must be מחמיר. The ריטב"א disagrees and holds that the fear that the face changes after three days is only a חשש דרבנן so we can be מקיל מספק. The ט"ז in יו"ד סימן שצ"ז asks on the רשב"א why wouldn’t he say that we should assume the death happened as late as possible since there is a חזקת חי on the body in front of us in which case we are within three days and can believe the עדות? The ש"ך in the נקודות הכסף there answers that there is a חזקת אשת איש opposing that which assumes the man died later. The בית שמואל in סימן י"ז ס"ק פּ"ד answers that the חזקת חי of the husband should tell us that he’s alive and that this body in front of us died ages ago and isn’t that person! The נו"ב in קמא אה"ע סימן ל"א disagrees with that and says you can’t ignore the fact that the person in front of you is a person with a חזקת חי and we need to assume he died as late as possible. That will require you to say this is the husband and the עדות should be valid. The שב שמעיתתא in ז פּרק כ"א brings all this and disagrees with the נו"ב. He says we can ignore the חזקת חי of the guy in front of us since we are only discussing the husband and he has a חזקת חי that tells us he is still alive like the ב"ש said. He goes even further and says that even if you hold the חשש of the body changing after three days is only a חשש דרבנן (like the ריטב"א) you still should be מחמיר because we don’t say ספק דרבנן לקולא if there is a חזקת איסור.