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Text Excerpt
דסניא ליה. אמר להו רב ששת: תניתוה. אמרו לה: ״מת בעליך ואחר כך מת בנך״ ונשאת, ואחר כך אמרו לה: ״חילוף היו הדברים״ — תצא, והולד ראשון ואחרון ממזר.
hates the yavam, and she would therefore take advantage of any testimony to rid herself of him. Rav Sheshet said to them that you learned it in the Mishnah. If they said to her: Your husband died and afterward your child died, and she married another man, and afterward they said to her that the matters were reversed, she must leave the other man, and the first child and the last one are each a mamzer.
היכי דמי: אילימא תרי ותרי — מאי חזית דסמכת אהני, סמוך אהני? ועוד, ממזר? ספק ממזר הוא. וכי תימא לא דק — הא מדקתני סיפא: הראשון ממזר והאחרון אינו ממזר, שמע מינה דדוקא קתני!
Again, Rav Sheshet analyzes the case: What are the circumstances? If we say that they are 4, i.e., the account of two witnesses was contradicted by two other witnesses, what did you see to make you rely on these second witnesses when you can equally rely on those? Why should she have to leave this man? And furthermore, why should the child be a mamzer? At worst he is an individual whose status as a mamzer is uncertain, as there is no proof that the second witnesses are more reliable. And if you would say that the tanna of the Mishnah was not precise in his language, but from the fact that it teaches in the latter clause of the Mishnah: The first is a mamzer and the last is not a mamzer, one can learn from here that the Mishnah was taught specifically in this manner.
אלא לאו: חד, וטעמא דאתו בי תרי אכחשוה, הא לאו הכי — מהימן! לעולם תרי ותרי, וכדאמר רב אחא בר מניומי, בעדי הזמה,
Rather, is it not the case that this is referring to one witness, and the reason is that two others came and contradicted him. It may be inferred from this that if it was not so, the sole witness is deemed credible. The Talmud refutes this proof: Actually, the Mishnah is speaking of a case when two witnesses came first, followed by another two witnesses, and the ruling is as Rav Aḥa bar Manyumi said, with regard to a different issue, that it is referring to witnesses of false, conspiring testimony. In other words, the second set of witnesses did not offer an alternative account of the same incident. Rather, they claimed that the first witnesses lied, as they were with them, elsewhere, during the time that they supposedly witnessed the husband’s death. In this case, the first witnesses are entirely disqualified, as the account of the second pair is accepted.