2,242. A Doubtful Kohein

Hilchos Issurei Biah 20:16

If a person’s father has been established as a kohein but there is a rumor that his mother is a divorcee or performed chalitzah, we are concerned and do not consider him a kohein. If one witness comes and testifies that he is fit, we accept him as a kohein based on that testimony. If two witnesses later come and testify that he’s a chalal, he is stripped of his status as a kohein. If another witness comes and testifies that he’s fit, we reinstate him as a kohein because the testimony of the last witness is combined with that of the first, giving us two witnesses testifying that he’s fit and two testifying that he’s unfit. The witnesses and the rumor cancel each other out – two witnesses being the same as 100 – and the person remains a kohein based on his father’s status.

Hilchos Issurei Biah 20:17

Let’s say that a woman remarries within three months of her husband’s death and has a baby, with the result that we don’t know if it’s a full-term birth from her first husband or a premature birth from her second husband. If one husband was a kohein and the other a Yisroel, the child is a doubtful kohein. Similarly, if a kohein’s son got mixed up with a Yisroel’s child and they grow up, they are both considered doubtful kohanim and must observe both the stringencies of being a Yisroel and those of being a kohein, i.e., they may only marry women who can marry kohanim, they may not render themselves unclean through corpse impurity and they may not eat trumah. If one of them marries a divorcee, they couple must be separated but they are not lashed.