Commentaire sur Guittin 1:4

שוין למוליך ומביא – to state “it was written in my presence and signed in my presence.”

Introduction Today’s mishnah begins to compare the laws concerning bills of divorce with those concerning writs of emancipation for slaves. These comparisons will continue until the end of the chapter. In Aramaic the word “get” means document and not necessarily just a divorce document. The word can refer to either divorce or emancipation documents, as well as other documents. Furthermore, there is some similarity to the two situations (marriage in the ancient world and slavery) and between the ways that the two documents (divorce and emancipation) are written. However, we should not think that the comparison between divorce and emancipation is complete. The major difference is that a man may sell his slave but he may of course not sell his wife.

Both bills of divorce and writs of emancipation are similar [concerning a messenger] who takes them [abroad from the land of Israel] to one who brings them [from abroad to the land of Israel]. The rules which we learned above concerning the declaration that a messenger must make upon presenting a get also apply to a messenger delivering a writ of emancipation. Whether he brings the get from Israel to a foreign land or brings it to Israel, the messenger bringing either document must say “In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed.”

This is one of the ways in which bills of divorce are similar to writs of emancipation. This section introduces the similarities between the two documents which will be discussed in the following mishnayoth.