About this episode
Rabbi Akiva claimed that one witness is accepted about a man's death but not if it is not a "kosher" witness, such as a wife, slave, maidservant or relative. The rabbis raised a difficulty against Rabbi Akiva from a story where even a female innkeeper was believed to say that a man had died and they allowed his wife to remarry. Rabbi Akiva replied that the case with her was different from a normal case because there were signs that the man was dead because she took out his belongings. Why did the Mishna treat the surrogate with contempt? Do you need to seriously interrogate the witnesses in a case of testimony that a man has died to permit his wife to marry? There are two opposite versions of what Rabbi Tarfon held. Apparently this is a tannaitic dispute - is it categorized with the monetary law because of the ketubah or capital law because of the prohibition of a married woman? Siyum Ceremony Text