Resources for Kesubos daf 16

1.     The משנה says that if a woman says she that when she got married she was a בתולה and deserves 200 and the husband says she was an אלמנה and she is only entitled to 100, we believe the husband if there are no עדים. The גמרא says this must be against ר"ג because ר"ג would say that the wife is believed. רש"י explains that this is because the woman has a חזקת הגוף which supports her claim. Later the גמרא asks that even according to ר׳ יוסי why we don’t believe the wife based on רוב since רוב נשים בתולות נישאות? תוספות in ד"ה כיון says that this question must only be against רב who holds you can be מוציא ממון ע"י רוב, but according to שמואל whom we pasken like one could not be מוציא ממון based on רוב alone. The בעל המאור disagrees and says that the גמרא’s question is even according to שמואל since in addition to the רוב the woman also has a חזקת הגוף to back up her claim, and רוב וחזקה is enough to be מוציא ממון. The רמב"ן in מלחמות makes a critical point about this. Theרמב"ן  takes issue with the premise of both the רש"י mentioned earlier and the בעל המאור that there is a relevant חזקה here. He says that a חזקה that works is a חזקת כשרות that most women are not מזנה. However, the issue here is not whether she was מזנה or even if she was a בעולה. The issue is only if she had been a נשואה to anyone prior to her marriage. After all, even a בתולה שנישאת ולא נבעלה  who gets divorced and is still a בתולה only gets a כתובה of 100 when she remarries. So her חזקת הגוף is not relevant, and there is no חזקה that a woman doesn’t marry. In fact, women are expected to marry. So there is no חזקה to speak of here. The פּני יהושע asks that what theרמב"ן  said can’t possibly be true because if it were then why did the גמרא suggest that our משנה wasn’t like ר"ג? According to the רמב"ן  there is no חזקת הגוף in our משנה and ר"ג only believed a woman because of her חזקת הגוף! The חתם סופר here answers that according to the רמב"ן  the גמרא understood in it’s question that if ר"ג held that a ברי וחזקה is enough to be מוציא ממון then certainly a ברי ורובא should be enough since רובא וחזקה רובא עדיף, to which the גמרא answers that ברי וברי is different.

2.     The משנה says that if a man says my land is your father’s but he sold it to me he is believed since הפּה שאסר הוא הפּה שהתיר.The קובץ שיעורים here has the following חקירה: what is the nature of a פּה שאסר? Is it just a regular "מיגו" which says that if I was a liar then I wouldn’t have said a word? Or is it more fundamental than that…that since the whole status of something only changed because of what I said then I should be believed to say it never really changed. The נפקא מינה he suggests is if it works even לאחר כדי דיבור, where he said the land was the other man’s father’s land and five minutes later said “but he sold it to me”. If it is just a מיגו then we have a principle of מיגו למפרע לא אמרינן and it wouldn’t work. However, if it is a right of believability then perhaps it would work even לאחר כדי דיבור. He says our גמרא should be a clear proof: our גמרא asks what is the difference between the מיגו of “she could have said מוכת עץ “אני תחתיך vs פּה שאסר? After all האי מיגו והאי מיגו! That seems quite explicit that it is just a regular מיגו. However, the קובץ שיעורים is דוחה that perhaps this is the גמרא’s answer—a פּה שאסר is a completely different concept because it is a case of אין שור שחוט לפניך.

3.     The גמרא says that our משנה is a case of ברי וברי. The ראשונים ask that the case in our משנה of the disputed land is a case where the father is dead, so how would the kids be a ברי? The רא"ש in סימן א answers that since ב"ד is טענינן ליתמי it is considered as if it’s a ברי. The קובץ שיעורים in חלק ב׳ סימן ה׳ אות ב points out that you see from here an important יסוד in what ברי is: it isn’t the strength of a ברי that is relevant but rather the weakness of the claim of שמא. Therefore, as long as you aren’t a שמא then you are as good as a ברי. He uses this to answer an interesting question: why does anyone ever needs to provide סימנים when they claim a lost object? Why don’t we say ברי ושמא ברי עדיף (since the finder isn’t really a מוחזק)? He answers that the finder’s שמא is not really a שמא in that case since we are טענינן for the possible rightful owner which is, as he explained, as good as a ברי. 

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