Resources for Kesubos daf 13

1.     The משנה says that if a woman was מזנה and she says she was מזנה with an אדם כשר, רבן גמליאל says that she is believed. The גמרא adds that רבן גמליאל holds she is believed even if רוב men in her area are פּסולים. In the חידושי רבי עקיבא איגר, רע"א discusses why we believe her even against a רוב? After all, an עד אחד isn’t believed against a רוב. He suggests that we believe her because she is saying it about herself and it is בידה to choose who she is מזנה with.  He questions that possibility though since if she was נאנסה then it wasn’t בידה. He then suggests another interesting approach. He says that the reason she is believed is because her statement isn’t contradicting the רוב. In other words, it isn’t like all men are the same and she randomly picks one. Rather, she decides which one she is interested in and chooses whom she wants to be מזנה with. Therefore, we can’t say that רוב tells us that the person she was מזנה with was from the רוב because even though the רוב may have come to her she would not have agreed to be with just anyone.

2.     The גמרא says that according to ר׳ יוחנן the חזקה that helps her helps her children as well and according to ר׳ אלעזר the חזקה of the mother does not work for the child. What is the יסוד המחלוקת?  The אפיקי ים in חלק א סימן י"ג explains as follows: there are two types of חזקות. One is a חזקה that is a "בירור" which means the חזקה tells us what really happened. An example of that is חזקה אין אדם מעיז פּניו בפני בעל חובו which tells us people typically don’t completely deny taking a loan in front of the borrower’s face. The other type of חזקה is one of "הנהגה" where the חזקה isn’t telling us what happened but just telling us in practice how to proceed, such as a case of חזקה דמיעקרא where we know something changed but we don’t know when so we assume it happened at the last possible minute. In our case of the woman who was מזנה, ר׳ יוחנן is of the opinion that she even though she did an עברה  and was מזנה as a פּנויה, we don’t assume she did a worse עברה such as be מזנה with a גוי since she has a חזקת צדקת. That’s is a חזקה דבירור which tells us what happened. Therefore, that חזקה can help for the child as well since we “know” what actually happened. However, ר׳ אלעזר is of the opinion that she doesn’t have a חזקת צדקת at this point since she was מזנה. All she has is a חזקת כשרות which is just a חזקה דהנהגה which tells you אל תפסילנה מספק. That חזקה wont help for the child since the child doesn’t have its own חזקה and we have nothing telling us what actually happened. What comes out of this אפיקי ים is that even ר׳ יוחנן is only מקיל by the child because it is a חזקה of בירור. That should mean in a case where בירור won’t help such as where two עדים say a woman was מזנה with a פּסול and two עדים say she wasn’t, even ר׳ יוחנן would agree that the חזקה of the mother of אל תפסילנה מספק won’t help the child as the חזקת צדקת is a חזקה דבירור and you cant do more בירור than two עדים. This helps explain a גמרא in קידושין דף ס"ו about ינאי המלך where the גמרא is talking exactly about that case and says the child (ינאי המלך )would not be כשר and doesn’t mention anyone arguing.

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