One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת גֵּרוּשִׁין
Divorce · Chapter 13
Sefer Nashim · The closing chapter of the treatise • Proving a husband's death so a wife is not left bound
3
Days a face stays
fit to identify
12
Hours ashore before
a drowned body swells
1
Witness, where the Torah
elsewhere requires two
10
Men chained together,
ten wives released
Part 1When Her Own Word Is Not Enough
- A proven false claim follows her. A woman who told a court that her husband divorced her before two named men, and was contradicted by them, is not believed later when she returns from abroad saying he died, since she is treated as wanting out of the marriage. One witness for her is still not enough a priori, lest she hired him, though if she married she need not leave. (13:1)
- War is the paradigm case of a likelihood. Her word that he died in the war is rejected even where the marriage was peaceful, because the ranks ahead and behind him fell and she reasons that he fell with them. Only if she says he died in bed, away from the fighting, is she believed. (13:2-3)
- Landslide, snakes, smoke, famine. All rejected on the same logic, that she leaned on what usually happens rather than on what she saw. Where the two of them were trapped in smoke and he died and she survived, her word fails, since just as she was saved by a miracle, he might have been. (13:4-5)
- Two cases where she is believed. Robbers or attackers fell on them and he was killed: accepted, since attackers do not generally kill the women, so her survival proves nothing about his. A raging epidemic: accepted, because everyone knows that in a plague some die and some live, and the strong young man dies while the old and infirm is spared, so no likelihood was available to her. (13:6-7)
RememberEvery rejection in this part is aimed at inference, not honesty. A conclusion she reasoned her way to is excluded even when it is almost certainly correct.
Part 2What Counts as Certain Death
- Interrogate the eyewitness. A witness who says he saw the man die is asked what he saw and how he knows. If the answer describes a situation in which death was merely very likely, no permission is granted, since testimony is accepted only where he saw it with certainty and no doubt remains. (13:15)
- Water with a rim, and water without. A man seen falling into the sea generates nothing, since he may have been cast out unseen. A cistern or cavern whose entire periphery is visible from the edge, watched past the time a man could survive, does generate testimony, as does a limb raised in a net that a person cannot live without. (13:16)
- Wounds and places that always kill. A pit of snakes and scorpions, a furnace, a cauldron of boiling wine or oil, or the windpipe and esophagus cut through in their majority: testimony may be given even if the man rose and fled. A lion's lair: no, since the lions may not eat him. A man hanging with a vulture feeding on him: no, unless it feeds from his brain, heart or intestines. (13:17-18)
- Identification is the face only. Forehead, nose and facial features intact, and within three days of death, or no testimony. Signs on his body and on his belongings are insufficient, even a mole, which would be more than enough to recover a lost garment. A body out of the water keeps its features far longer, but twelve hours ashore and swollen ends it. Candlelight or moonlight is enough light to look by. (13:21-22)
RememberA man who called out his own name, his father's name and his town from a distance and said he was dying of a snakebite frees his wife even if the body is unrecognizable.
Part 3Who May Tell the Court
- Hearsay, and children with detail. A witness may report what he heard from a competent adult, even a servant or a maidservant, but not from a minor or an incompetent. Children are an exception where the detail is thick: we came from the funeral of so and so, these eulogized, that sage followed the bier, and this happened to the bier. (13:8-9)
- The confession that is read in half. A Jew who says that he killed so and so frees the wife, because a man's own words cannot incriminate him, so the confession is discarded and what stands is his report of the death. (13:10)
- A gentile speaking with no purpose. Accepted where he is plainly not testifying: how terrible that so and so died, he was so good to me. Rejected where there is a reason behind the words, such as a man saying do this for me or I will kill you as I killed so and so, or officials announcing that they executed a man, since they use falsehood to spread fear. (13:11-13)
- Writing, and no interrogation. A note in a Jew's hand saying that so and so died is accepted, as is the writing of a man who has lost the power of speech and has been examined and found sound of mind. Witnesses here are not put through the formal interrogation at all. No guessing from features and marks, though: the name and the town must be stated. (13:27-28)
RememberThe Rambam's own reason closes the treatise: the Torah's rules of testimony govern facts that only witnesses can settle, while a death verifies itself, so the Sages leaned lenient here so that the daughters of Israel are not left waiting.