Et on pense que ceux-ci témoignent lorsqu'ils deviennent majeurs, de ce qu'ils ont vu lorsqu'ils étaient mineurs. On pense qu'un homme a dit: c'est la signature de mon père, c'est la signature de mon rabbin, c'est la signature de mon frère [et l'acte est certifié par sa parole. Car la certification des actes est une ordonnance rabbinique, et les rabbins l'ont cru en ce qui concerne les ordonnances rabbiniques.], Je me souviens quand cette femme est sortie avec hinuma (voir 2: 1) et ses cheveux ont été défaits [auquel cas elle prend un kethubah de deux cents. Et bien que l'argent ne soit réclamé qu'avec un témoignage de bonne foi, ici c'est différent; car puisque la plupart des femmes se marient comme des vierges, c'est simplement un récit d'événements], et (je me souviens) quand cet homme est allé de l'école pour se plonger pour manger de la terumah [quand nous étions jeunes à l'école. Sur la base d'un tel témoignage, il est nourri de la terumah d'rabanan (terumah par ordonnance rabbinique), telle que la terumah qui est prise dans un pot non perforé, etc. Mais il n'est pas nourri de terumah d'oraitha (terumah par la loi de la Torah) par un tel témoignage. Et nous ne soupçonnons pas qu'il aurait pu être l'esclave d'un Cohein, car il est interdit d'enseigner la Torah à un esclave.], Et (je me souviens) quand il a partagé (terumah) avec nous sur l'aire de battage [Et nous ne soupçonne qu'il aurait pu être l'esclave d'un Cohein, car la terumah n'est pas distribuée à un esclave à moins que son maître ne soit avec lui.], et (je me souviens) que cet endroit était un beth-hapras [Si l'on laboure une tombe, il fait un beth-hapras de cent coudées, ceci étant la distance estimée que la charrue déplace les os des morts; et la tumah (impureté) de Beth-hapras est par ordonnance rabbinique.], et nous marcherions (seulement) jusqu'à ici le jour du sabbat [car les limites (du sabbat) sont une ordonnance rabbinique.] Mais on ne croit pas qu'un homme dise: Cet homme avait une route à cet endroit, ou: cet homme avait madame et s'était trompé dans cet endroit [c.-à-d., Il avait un endroit ici pour faire l'éloge (lehaspid) de ses morts, et faire le classement (ma'amadoth) et le des séances qu'ils faisaient pour les morts. En cela, on ne l’a pas cru, car il s’agit d’une question d’argent et nécessite un témoignage de bonne foi.]
Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
validating a document is all verbal, and the mitzvah of validating a document is from the rabbis and we are more lenient
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
Introduction
The entire first two chapters of Ketuboth have dealt with the issue of believability in the absence of evidence or two witnesses. Our mishnah discusses in which situations a person is believed to testify about things he saw when he was a minor. That is to say, although minors are not allowed to testify, there are certain things that a minor can see about which he may testify upon reaching adulthood.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
שיצתה בהינומא וראשה פרוע – and she takes her Ketubah of two hundred [zuz] and even though they do not release money other than through clear testimony, it is different here, for most of the women are married as virgins, it is revealed as something general.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
The following are believed to testifying when they are grown-up about what they saw when they were minors: A person is believed to say “This is the handwriting of my father”, “This is the handwriting of my teacher”, “This is the handwriting of my brother”; A person is believed to say that the signature on a document is similar to the handwriting of a person with whom they were close in childhood. The assumption is that a person would remember this well. Furthermore, this is not really “testifying” but just verifying someone else’s testimony, and therefore there is more room to be lenient in accepting such testimony.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
ושהיה איש פלוני יוצא מבית הספר – when we were studying as school children,
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
“I remember that that woman went out with a hinuma and an uncovered head”; A person is believed to say that he was at a wedding and the bride wore the signs of a virgin (see mishnah one of this chapter). The Talmud explains that he is believed because most marriages are first marriages.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
to eat Terumah and through this testimony, we feed Terumah of the Rabbis to him, such as for example Terumah/priest’s due that we remove from a pot without holes and things similar to it, but Terumah, according to the Torah, we don’t feed him through testimony such as this, and we do not suspect lest he ws the servant of a Kohen, for it is prohibited to teach the slave Torah.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
“That that man used to go out from school to immerse in order to eat terumah”; A priest must immerse before he eats terumah. The time of immersion is right before evening. A person is believed to say that he saw one of his classmates leave school early to immerse in the mikveh, and that hence he is a priest.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
ושהיה חולק עמנו על הגורן – and we do not suspect lest he was the servant of Kohen, for we do not distribute Terumah to a slave other than if his master is with him.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
“That he used to take a share with us at the threshing floor”; The priests collect their terumah at the threshing floor. By this person testifying that so-and-so collected terumah, he is saying that he is a priest. Note that again the mishnah is concerned with verifying the status of priests.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
ושהמקום הזה בית הפרס – A person who plows the grave makes a a field of a square P’ras, declared unclean on account of crushed bones carried over it from a ploughed grave which is one hundred cubits for this is what they measured that the plough drags the bones of the dead and the defilement of the field of a square P’ras according to the Rabbis.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
“That this place was a bet ha-peras”; A bet ha-peras is a field adjacent to a field that used to serve as a cemetery but has been plowed over. The adjacent field may have small pieces of bones there, and therefore a priest may not enter. A person is believed to identify such a field, even if he only saw it in his childhood.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
ועד כאן היינו באין בשבת – the Rabbinic Sabbath limits.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
“That up to here we used to go on Shabbat”; On Shabbat a person may leave his town only 2000 amot. This is called the “tehum shabbat” or shabbat limit. A person is believed when he reaches majority age to say that when they were children they would go this far out of the city. The reason he is believed is that this is a matter that can be verified.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Ketubot
מעמד ומספד – a place which he had herei. to eulogize his dead and to make the “standing up and sitting down” (i.e., the halting of the funeral escort on returning from burial for lamentation or consolation) which they would do for the dead, in this he Is not believed, which is a monetary matter, and which requires complete testimony.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Ketubot
But a man is not believed when he says: “So-and-so had a path in this place”; “That man had a place of standing up and eulogy in this place”. The mishnah lists two things a person cannot testify that he saw as a minor. First of all he may not testify that a certain person owned a path through someone else’s field. Second of all, he may not testify that a person owned a place where they used to stand and give eulogies. Such places were owned on the paths that lead from the cemeteries to the cities. It would have been like a small, private funeral home. In both of these cases, the testimony involves the ownership of land. For a person to prove that he owns a piece of land, he will need to bring firmer testimony than this.
