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Resources for Kesubos 72

1. The משנה says that if a woman feeds her husband non-kosher then he has a מצוה to divorce here without giving her a כתובה. The גמרא asks how he knows she fed him טבל and answers that she said a כהן said it was מעושר and the husband asked this כהן and he said it wasn’t מעושר. There are several fundamental questions discussed here regarding how we know she gave him איסור. First, why should the כהן who said he never said it was מעושר be believed? Isn’t he just one עד against her own עדות which should cancel itself out? The רא"ש in סימן ט says he actually isn’t believed alone, and the גמרא is talking about a case where there was another עד in addition to the כהן. The ריטב"א disagrees and says the כהן is believed because the wife herself put her נאמנות in the כהן and he said it never happened! This creates a רגלים לדבר that she isn’t telling the truth which is enough to be מפסיד the כתובה. The ריטב"א asks another question: why doesn’t the גמרא say that the way the husband knew it was not kosher is because his wife admitted as much to him so after he ate it? He answers that the גמרא didn’t want to say that case since it isn’t שכיח. However, he also quotes the ראב"ד who says we wouldn’t believe her if she admitted to feeding him treif since אין אדם משים עצמו רשע. The ריטב"א disagrees with this ראב"ד since even though we cannot consider her a רשע based on her words but since this is relevant to money we should say ההודאת בעל דין כמאה עדים דמי. What would the ראב"ד respond to this? The הפלאה explains that the שיטת הראב"ד is that the reason she loses her כתובה is not because of a קנס but rather because the husband cannot live with her since she may feed him treif again since she has been proven to be a רשע. Therefore, if we don’t believe that she did an איסור because of אין אדם משים עצמו רשע then he is allowed to trust her and remain married to her in which case we cant take away her כתובה. The ריטב"א apparently holds that the way a כתובה is set up is that if she did something considered עוברת על דת she forfeits the כתובה no matter what so if she admits it then her כתובה is cancelled. Interestingly, the הפלאה points out another חידוש: he says that according to everyone if she admits to feeding him treif and the husband on his own knows its true then she definitely loses her כתובה since he cannot trust her anymore since he knows she is not trustworthy so even the ראב"ד would agree in this case that she loses the כתובה despite the fact that there are no witnesses. The פּני יהושע explains the ראב"ד differently. He says that we don’t believe the woman to lose her כתובה since the loss of the כתובה for feeding him treif is a קנס and a person isn’t believed to make themselves חייב in a קנס. According to that explanation, even if the husband knew it was true because he saw her do it he would still owe her a כתובה since there is no קנס.

2. The ראשונים bring a ירושלמי in our פּרק in הלכה ו that lists examples of how the husband knows his wife tried to give him איסור. One of the examples the ירושלמי lists is that a חכם saw her כתם and was מטהר it and the husband asked the חכם and the חכם denied it. This is also brought by theרמב"ם in הלכות אישות פּרק כ"ד הל׳ י"א. The גידולי שמואל has an amazing הערה: a כתם is only a דין דרבנן. This should indicate that a woman is considered an עוברת על דת even for an איסור דרבנן. Nonetheless, the husband would certainly be a שוגג. There is a well know נתיבות in סימן רל"ד אות א that says שוגג by an איסור דרבנן is not an עברה at all. If so, his wife didn’t really give him איסור! However, a simple answer to this may be that when the ירושלמי says כתם it means a stain on a בדיקה which would be a דין דאורייתא.

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