Resources for Yevamos 25
1. The גמרא says that the הלכה is that if we see things that are considered “מכוער הדבר” and they are accompanied by a קלא דלא פּסיק then the couple must get divorced. However, if the קול was פּסק, then they don’t need to get divorced. How do you define a קלא דפּסיק? One would assume that it would just mean there was silence—the קול simply stopped within a day and a half as the גמרא says. However, רש"י in ד"ה דפּסיק says there must be a counter קול, i.e. one that says the original קול was false. Theשו"ת בית יהודה in אבן העזר סימן י"ט learns from here that if there was just silence within 1.5 days, that doesn’t count as a קלא דפּסיק. Rather, a counter קול must come out within 1.5 days, and if it comes out after 1.5 days it is also considered a קלא דלא פּסיק. The שב יעקב in סימן ז disagrees and says that even רש"י agrees that if the קול simply stops within 1.5 days it is considered a קלא דפּסיק. רש"י just said a counter קול to tell us that if a counter קול came out even after the 1.5 days it would be considered a קלא דפּסיק.
2. The משנה says that if someone says to a woman “I killed your husband” he should not marry her himself but she can marry others. The גמרא says that even רב יוסף who says by פּלוני רבעני לרצוני that he is not believed because he has made himself a רשע, nonetheless in our case he would be believed since by עדות אשה we can even accept פּסולי עדות דאורייתא. However, if you hold that even by עדות אשה you need כשר עדים מדאורייתא then our משנה would need to hold like רבא who says we say פּלגינן דיבורא and we believe the man about the husband being dead but not that he is the one who killed him. The exact point of why רב יוסף does not agree to רבא in the case of פּלוני רבעני לרצוני is not clear in the גמרא. In תוספות ד"ה לימא it sounds like תוספות understood that רב יוסף did not agree with רבא because he did not hold of the concept of פּלגינן דיבורא. The issue is if that’s true, why does רב יוסף says that we can’t believe the man who says פּלוני רבעני לרצוני because he is a רשע and a רשעis פּסול לעדות-- even if a רשע wasn’t פּסול לעדות, he would still be giving עדות about himself and we can’t believe that since אדם קרוב אצל עצמו ואין אדם משים עצמו רשע. If so, if you don’t hold of פּלגינן דיבורא, then if can’t believe the part he is being מעיד about himself we should not be able to believe any of the story including the part about the other party regardless of whether a רשע is believed!? There are several very important answers given by the אחרונים. The נודע ביהודה in אבן העזר מהדו"ק סימן ע"ב says that רב יוסף holds that he is believed to make himself a רשע because we would say, based on a גמרא in סנהדרין דף י ע"א, that מיגו דנאמן להאי נאמן להאי which means since we believe you about one part of the testimony we believe you about the other. The קובץ הערות in סימן כ"א has a completely different approach. He says that there is a fundamental difference between פּלגינן דיבורא and פּלגינן נאמנות. The concept of פּלגינן דיבורא says we don’t hear the words you are saying. פּלגינן נאמנות says we hear your whole story but you only have נאמנות in regards to certain הלכות and not others. For example, if an עד אחד says someone’s husband died, we believe him in regards to the fact that she can remarry, but he is not believed in regards to the יורשים inheriting the estate. Everyone agrees that that is true. Therefore, in the case of “I killed your husband”, if you held that a רשע is believed, there would be no problem believing the man fully because we can choose to not give him נאמנות regarding his own personal halachic status while still hearing the whole story in regards to the wife. By the case of ּפּלוני רבעני לרצוני, since a רשע is not believed there, we can’t believe the story because the story includes him being a רשע and a רשע is not believed.
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