Resources for Kesubos daf 14
1. The גמרא says that if the woman said her child was from her ארוס and the ארוס agrees, they are believed. The גמרא explains that they are believed for two reasons: the ארוס was מודה and we pasken like ר"ג anyway that she is believed. There is a מחלוקת ראשונים as to what that second answer was coming to address. תוספות in the longer ד"ה חדא suggests from the ר"י that it means that even if the ארוס wasn’t מודה fully in the sense that he isn’t sure if she was מזנה with others as well. The רמב"ן brings this פּשט from the ר"י מג"ש as well and asks that the גמרא can’t possibly be חושש for that since no one ever knows for sure if their wife wasn’t with other people as well. The שב שמעתתא in שמעתתא ב׳ פּרק כ answers for the ר"י מג"ש as follows: the father is always believed because of the פּסוק of יכיר which gives the father broad believability about his children. That believability isn’t contingent on anything other than the father being convinced he is right, even if its possible he is wrong since she may have been מזנה with others. However, that נאמנות only helps for the child but wont help for the mother for exactly this reason, i.e. maybe she was מזנה with others. Therefore the גמרא says ועוד הלכה כר"ג to explain why his wife is כשרה as well.
2. The גמרא says that an אלמנת עיסה is כשרה לכהונה. The שערי יושר in שער החזקות פּ"ט ד"ה ומהא works with the following important principle: חזקה doesn’t work in all circumstances. For חזקה to work, it has to resolve the question at hand. For example, in יבמות דף קי"ג, ר"א holds that a חרש is a ספק שוטה. Therefore, his marriage to any lady is a ספק as well. Consequently, if someone is בא על אשתו he will need to bring an אשם תלוי. Why doesn’t the חזקת פּנויה of the אשת חרש tell us that she isn’t really an אשת איש? The answer, says ר׳ שמעון שקאפּ, is that the חזקה doesn’t answer whether her husband is a בר דעת or not and that remains an active ספק for him. Therefore, חזקה cannot be used. Based on this ר׳ שמעון asks why our גמרא says that an אלמנת עיסה (which is a woman who had been married to a ספק חלל) is כשרה לכהונה? רש"י explained that it was because the woman has a חזקה so we should say אל תפסילנה מספק. But that חזקה doesn’t speak to her husband’s status and he remains a ספק חלל so why would the חזקה work? He answers that the word "אלמנת" is key. In other words, her husband is now dead, so the only thing this חזקה is relevant to is her. As such, her חזקה can be used. Had he still been alive her חזקה would not help.
3. The גמרא says that the reason ר׳ יהושע would be מכשיר a woman by a case of אלמנת עיסה is because there are תרי ספיקי. According to תוספות, the two ספקות are the fact that there is a ספק חלל and the second ספק is that no one knows who the ספק חלל is. The פּני יהושע asks a very basic question for anyone whoever learned הלכות ספק ספיקא: we pasken in יו"ד סימן ק"י that a אחד בגוף ואחד בתערובות doesn’t work as a ספק ספיקא. What that means is if one ספק is a regular ספק and the other ספק is just that the first ספק got mixed into a mixture and got lost then it doesn’t count as a ספק ספיקא. If so, how could our גמרא says it counts like תרי ספיקי? The חתם סופר in קובץ תשובות אבן העזר סימן ס answers that the reason אחד בגוף ואחד בתערובות doesn’t work is because we view the first ספק as being ואדי איסור because of ספק דאורייתא לחומרא. Therefore, when it gets mixed in we just have one ספק. However, that is not the case here because before this ספק חלל got mixed in you couldn’t say we decided he was a ואדי חלל because we have to be מחמיר the other way as well and say he can’t be מטמא למיתים מספק. Therefore, since we were never מכריע the first ספק it still counts as a ספק ספיקא.
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