Mishnah 2 of Chapter 8. This Mishnah contains two separate points. The first is the testimony of Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava and Rabbi Yehudah HaKohen, which relates to the subject we dealt with at the end of the previous chapter, and according to the Bartenura there is a dispute here that expands on that earlier point. The second is the testimony of Rabbi Yose HaKohen and Rabbi Zechariah ben HaKatzav, on an entirely different matter.
The testimony of Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava and Rabbi Yehudah HaKohen:
We discussed a kohen who marries a minor girl through a rabbinic marriage. We said that in a marriage of this sort the woman may eat Terumah by virtue of being married to a kohen, even though she is not married by Torah law; but since the marriage is only rabbinic, she eats only rabbinic Terumah. The question they come to clarify here, continuing from the Mishnah at the end of Chapter 7, is from which stage of the marriage this permission takes effect.
"Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava v'Rabbi Yehudah HaKohen al ketanah bas Yisrael" - a minor girl who is not the daughter of a kohen, but the daughter of a Yisrael or of a Levi.
"shenisses l'kohen" - her marriage to the kohen was performed by rabbinic law, through her mother or her older brother.
"shehuchzekah b'Terumah" - she eats Terumah in his home, and again: rabbinic Terumah only.
"keivan shenichnesah la'chuppah af al pi shelo niv'alah" - from the moment she enters the chuppah with her husband she eats, and marital relations do not hold her back at all; that is simply not a factor in this halachah.
The testimony of Rabbi Yose HaKohen and Rabbi Zechariah ben HaKatzav:
"HaKatzav" means a butcher. The content of their testimony, which will get lost among the details if we do not state it first, is this: the status of a girl who was held as collateral for financial reasons, with regard to the concern that she was violated by her gentile captors, is identical to the status of a girl who was abducted and held in captivity by gentiles.
The concern is that a girl or a woman held captive by gentiles will be abused by them, and she will therefore be forbidden to marry a kohen, since a kohen may not marry a woman who has been with a gentile - willingly or by force, it makes no difference. The assumption is that when a gentile has control over a Jewish woman she will in fact be abused, and she is therefore forbidden to a kohen, unless there is testimony confirming that it did not happen: someone who witnessed the entire episode and can confirm that nothing occurred.
The case before us is a girl held as collateral by gentiles, to guarantee that her family would repay a loan it had taken. The main novelty of the testimony is that her law is the same as that of a girl who was seized and carried off by kidnappers and bandits.
The details of the story take us somewhat off topic, so briefly: a family was forced to take a loan, and the gentiles who lent the money held the family's daughter as collateral. In time that daughter married into a family of kohanim, and it is possible that her husband then died, at which point the family learned what had happened to her in her childhood. The source of this information is people who are not ideal witnesses - witnesses who are generally unfit to testify in beis din but are fit in this context, or witnesses who are thoroughly questionable. For the sake of a simple reading we will adopt one of the answers of Rabbi Akiva Eiger: those who testified were the girl's own servants, and they therefore have a personal interest in protecting her and perhaps even in covering for her. That is the concern.
So the family now learns that the girl who married into it was held in her childhood as collateral to guarantee the repayment of money, and the information comes from her and from her household, and those same witnesses go on to testify that during the time she was held she was not abused by the gentiles. Even so, the family wishes to be stringent and say: "Now that we have learned that this happened to you in your youth, we are concerned and we do not rely on their testimony that nothing occurred, and therefore you cannot marry into our family" - such as where her first husband died, and they will not permit her to marry another member of the family.
The Sages responded: this stringency has no basis whatsoever and no logical foundation. Either you accept the testimony that she was taken captive - and then you must also accept the testimony that nothing happened to her; or you say that the witnesses are not believed - and then even their testimony that she was taken captive is void. Either way, there is no room to be stringent and to prevent her from marrying into your family; rather, she must be accepted.
The text of the Mishnah:
"He'id Rabbi Yosei HaKohen v'Rabbi Zechariah ben HaKatzav al tinoket" - in modern Hebrew a "tinoket" is a toddler of one or two, but in the language of the Mishnah "tinok" and "tinoket" mean a boy or girl who has not yet reached the age of mitzvos. Here we are speaking of a girl of eight or ten.
"shehorhanah b'Ashkelon" - that she was held as a hostage, as a pledge, in the city of Ashkelon. The significance of mentioning the place: in the time of the Mishnah Ashkelon was a gentile city in which the Jews had no upper hand, and the assumption is that the gentiles there acted without any fear of revenge or of consequences for abusing a Jewish captive.
"v'richakuhah b'nei mishpachah" - the members of the family into which she married estranged themselves from her and pushed her away, and would not allow her to marry into the family, or to marry again if her first husband died.
"v'edeha me'idin osah shelo nistarah v'lo nitme'ah" - those very same witnesses who testified that she had been held as a captive in her childhood also testify about her that she was never secluded with those gentiles, and that she was never rendered tumah in any way that would disqualify her from marrying a kohen.
"Amru lahem chachamim: im ma'aminim atem shehorhanah, ha'aminu shelo nistarah v'lo nitme'ah" - if you wish to believe these witnesses, who are not the ordinary valid witnesses, that she really was held as a hostage by her captors, you must believe those very same people that nothing happened to the girl that would forbid her to a family of kohanim. This is the principle of "the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted."
"v'im ein atem ma'aminim" - and if you do not believe them that nothing happened to her, then do not believe them that she was seized and held as a captive in the first place. In other words: from whichever angle you examine this, it is neither reasonable nor correct to be stringent with this girl and to pick and choose as you please which part of the testimony to accept, for such a stringency harms her unjustly and illogically.
In summary: in the first part of the Mishnah we learned that a minor Jewish girl who married a kohen by rabbinic law eats Terumah from the moment she entered the chuppah, even though the marriage was not consummated. In the second part we studied the testimony of Rabbi Yosei HaKohen and Rabbi Zechariah ben HaKatzav, that the law of a girl held as a pledge for financial reasons is the same as the law of one taken captive by kidnappers, and that the credibility of the witnesses may not be split - if we believe their testimony that she was held as a pledge, we believe them as well that she was not secluded and was not rendered tumah.