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From: R. Kovacs
Subject: What does certification prove?
Date: 13 Tishrei 5782
Nu, my zeyde told me about the papers in Munkács.
After the war, there was a man (I never learned his name, my zeyde called him "the litvak from Ungvár") who had papers from three different batei din. One in Budapest, one in Prague, one from a rav who had fled to Switzerland.
Each paper said the same thing: this man appeared before us, he said certain things, we witnessed. The papers agreed on the facts. They were all properly signed.
But the kehillah in Munkács, what was left of it, could not agree what the papers meant. Reb Mendel accepted the Budapest certificate. Reb Yosef did not. Reb Shmuel said the Prague certificate was valid only if you also accepted certain other authorities, which he did not.
My zeyde said: "The papers were not arguing with each other. The rabbis were arguing about the papers."
The litvak had three valid certificates. He had no resolution.
—Shlomo Dov Kovacs
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