Talmud - Yevamot 25a יבמות כ״ה א׳

The same applies if the husband found the shoes reversed under the bed, so that the toe of the shoe faced the bed; this is a sign that a stranger came in and placed them like that. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: Since this is a distasteful matter, she must be divorced. The Gemara questions this: Shoes turned around? Let him see whose they are and clarify who the stranger was and then find out what he was doing there. Rather, the case was that he found the place of the shoes, i.e., shoe prints, reversed under the bed and cannot recognize whose shoe prints they are. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: Since this is a distasteful matter, she must be divorced.

The Gemara concludes: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rav, that they must divorce only if there were witnesses, and the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, that they must divorce if there is a matter that is distasteful. The Gemara challenges this: One halakha is difficult, as it contradicts the other halakha. The Gemara answers: This contradiction is not difficult. This one relates to a case where the rumor ceases and the woman is sent away only if there are witnesses, but that one relates to a case where the rumor does not cease, in which case he divorces her even if there are no witnesses. The Gemara elucidates the cases: In cases of a rumor that does not cease, even if there are no witnesses the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and he divorces her. If the rumor ceases and there are witnesses, the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rav, and he divorces her because there are witnesses.

The Gemara clarifies this: At what point is it considered to be a persistent rumor? Abaye said: My mother told me: A rumor in the city lasts a day and a half. The Gemara comments: We said that this is the length of time only if the rumor did not cease in the meantime. But if the rumor did cease in the meantime, even it was later renewed, this is considered a rumor that has ceased and is disregarded. And we said that a rumor that ceased is not considered persistent only if the reason it ceased was not due to fear of the individual about whom it is said. But if it ceased due to fear, it is only due to fear and is still considered a persistent rumor. And we said that a persistent rumor has validity only if the subject of the rumor does not have any known enemies, but if he has enemies it may be assumed that it is the enemies who put out the rumor about him.

§ We learned in a mishna there (Gittin 45b): A man who divorces his wife due to her bad reputation may not take her back again, even if it turns out that the rumor was untrue. Likewise, if he divorced his wife due to a vow of hers that is unbearable to him he may not take her back even if she is released from that vow. Rabba bar Rav Huna sent a question to Rabba bar Rav Naḥman: Our teacher, instruct us. If one of those men listed in that mishna divorced his wife due to her bad reputation or vow and it was therefore prohibited for him to take her back, yet he nevertheless remarried her, what is the halakha? Must he divorce her?

Rabba bar Rav Naḥman said to him: We already learned in the mishna (24b): With regard to one who is suspected of committing adultery with a married woman, and he, her husband, divorced her, even if he subsequently remarried her he must divorce her. Rabba bar Rav Huna said to him: Is this comparable to the case I asked about? There, in the mishna, it says: They, the court, remove her from him, whereas here (Gittin 45b), the mishna states: He divorced her of his own accord. Perhaps if the court requires them to divorce, the halakha is different. The Gemara explains: And Rabba bar Rav Naḥman, who held that the two mishnayot were comparable, had a text of the mishna that also read: He divorced her, instead of: They remove her.

Rabba bar Rav Huna asks: Still, is this comparable? Here, the question was raised in a case where the first husband remarried her, which will not strengthen the rumors of her bad reputation, but there, the mishna refers to the man with whom she committed adultery remarrying her, which strengthens those rumors. He said to him: They are certainly comparable to each other: Here, in the mishna discussing one who is suspected of committing adultery, the Sages said that he may not marry her and if he did marry her he must divorce her. So too, the Sages said in the case of one who divorced his wife due to her reputation or vow that he may not take her back, and if he does remarry her he must divorce her.

The Gemara rejects this: That is not so, as there, when the man suspected of committing adultery marries the woman, he thereby strengthens the rumor of adultery. For this reason he must divorce her. Here, we say that he, the husband, established the facts of the rumor and found that it was not so and the rumor was baseless. Therefore, there is no need for him to divorce her if he remarries her. Rabba bar Rav Huna’s question remains unresolved.

MISHNA: An agent who brought a bill of divorce from a country overseas and said: It was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence, as required in order to establish the bill of divorce as valid, may not marry the wife, i.e., the divorcée. Since the validity of the bill of divorce is based upon his testimony, marrying the divorcée creates the impression that he had an ulterior motive for his testimony. Similarly, a witness who testified that a certain man died, or testified: I killed him, or: We killed him, may not marry that man’s wife. Rabbi Yehuda says: If he testified: I killed him, his wife may not be married at all based on that evidence, as his testimony is unreliable, but if he said: We killed him, his wife may be married to anyone other than those witnesses.

GEMARA: The Gemara clarifies: The reason that the agent may not marry the divorcée applies specifically in a case where he brings the bill of divorce from a country overseas, as in this case we, the court, rely upon his testimony to validate the bill of divorce. But an agent who brings a bill of divorce from Eretz Yisrael need not make any verbal declaration, and since we, the court, do not rely upon his testimony but upon the written bill of divorce alone, he may marry his wife, i.e., the divorcée, since it does not arouse suspicion.

The Gemara challenges this: But also in the case of a witness who said that the husband died, we, the court, do not rely solely upon his testimony. As the Master said: A woman is exacting in her investigation of the truth of the testimony that her husband died before she marries again, and it is primarily on that basis that she is permitted to remarry. Yet it is taught that he still may not marry his wife.

The Gemara answers: The two cases are not comparable, as there, in the case when a witness testifies that the husband has died, there is not anything written as proof, and therefore he may not marry the widow. However, here, in a case where an agent brings a bill of divorce from Eretz Yisrael, there is a written document that is valid without any testimony. As we learned in a mishna (117a): What is the difference between a bill of divorce and death? Why does the court rely upon those men who are not trusted as witnesses to the death of a husband if they act as agents to bring a bill of divorce, even from overseas, such that they must give testimony that it was written and signed in their presence? The difference is that with regard to a bill of divorce the writing proves their testimony.

The mishna stated that if the witness said with regard to the husband that he died, or: I killed him, or: We killed him, then he may not marry the wife of the deceased. The Gemara infers that he, the witness himself, may not marry the wife; this implies that to another she may be married on the basis of his testimony.

The Gemara challenges this: Didn’t Rav Yosef say: With regard to one who testified that so-and-so sodomized me against my will, then he who testified to being the victim of the sexual assault and another bystander witness can combine as a pair of witnesses in order to put the assailant to death for homosexual intercourse. But if he testified: I was willingly sodomized by so-and-so, then he is wicked by his own admission, since he willingly transgressed. And the Torah said: “Put not your hand with the wicked to be a corrupt witness” (Exodus 23:1). If one renders himself unfit as a witness by admitting to murder, how can his testimony be accepted to permit the wife to remarry?

And if you would say that testimony that a woman’s husband died is different, as the Sages ruled leniently in such matters and perhaps accepted testimony of a wicked witness in such cases, didn’t Rav Menashe say:

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

Yevamot 25a examines suspicious signs of infidelity like displaced shoe prints and debates when rumors alone require a husband to divorce his wife.