For the source text click/tap here: Yevamot 117
To download, click/tap here: PDF
A new Mishna teaches us that a woman can testify regarding her husband's death, and any other woman is believed with similar testimony, except for five women.
These are the widow's mother-in-law, the daughter of her mother-in-law, her rival wife, the wife of her yavam, or the daughter of her yavam.
Any of these five women might hate the widow and would have reason to lie: they would like her to leave the family.
For the most part, though, women are said to hate other women because one woman likely will speak about another woman to a man - a husband or father or father-in-law - who will use that information against them.
The rabbis cite Proverbs 27:19, "As in water face answers to face, so the heart of man to man" to explain that when hatred builds in one person, it will also build in the person who is hated.
The rabbis tell us that women have many reasons to lie about family relationships and they should not be trusted.
That is, if one person hates another, the feeling soon becomes mutual. Here too, there is no need for a separate reason in order that the hatred be reciprocated.
This famous verse is used for many kinds of mutual relationships including brotherly love and love of the divine.
We explore Maimonides' paradox of loving that which is infinite and compare with the Baal Shem Tov’s sense of the imminent divine.