Conflict between the Priestly Court and Sages’ Court
m. Rosh Hashanah 1:7
A father and son who saw the month [i.e., the new moon] should go [to Jerusalem]. Not because they join together [to constitute a pair of witnesses] but because if one of them was disqualified, the second could join with another [witness].1 R. Simeon says: A father and his son and all relations are permitted to testify [together] about the month. R. Yosi said: There was an incident involving Tobias the doctor, who saw the month in Jerusalem with his son and his freed slave, and the priests2 accepted him and his son but invalidated his slave. When they came before the court,3 they accepted him and his slave and invalidated his son.
m. Ketubbot 1:5
One who eats [at the house of] his father-in-law in Judaea [during the betrothal period] without witnesses is not able to make a claim of virginity4 because he [is assumed to have] isolated himself with her. Both the widow of an Israelite and the widow of a priest [receive] the same [ketubah payment]: their ketubah is a maneh.5 A court of priests would collect four hundred zuz for a virgin, and the sages did not chastise them.
Notes
[Two witnesses had to testify to the appearance of the new moon for a new month to be declared. A father and son normally could not serve as witnesses together, but this mishnah suggests that both should go to Jerusalem so that one can testify if the other is disqualified.—Ed.]
[The court of priests.—Ed.]
[The court of sages.—Ed.]
[A claim that his wife was not a virgin when they married.—Ed.]
[The ketubah is the monetary payment to which a woman is entitled if her husband dies or divorces her. The ketubah for a woman who enters her marriage a virgin is normally two hundred zuz. A widow who remarries has a ketubah of one maneh, or one hundred zuz.—Ed.]
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
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