Commentaire sur Guittin 8:5

כתב לשם מלכות שאינה הוגנת – If he was in Babylonia and wrote “for Heshbon in the years of the kingdom of Edom” where there is no such kingdom in the place where the Jewish bill of divorce is written, she should go free [with a corresponding Jewish bill of divorce, if she married on account of the “Jewish bill of divorce” that she received from the first one] from this one and that one, and it is called “The Kingdom of Edom,” a kingdom which is not corresponding to/befitting it, which lacks a form of writing and a language.

Introduction If the get was not written precisely the way that the rabbis prescribed it to be written, it is invalid. Our mishnah mentions mistakes in writing the get which cause it to be invalid. If she were to remarry with such a get, she is considered an adulteress, because she was never divorced from her first husband. This is analogous to a situation where she thought her husband was dead, she remarried and then it turned out that he was still alive. Hence, all of the consequences that were described in Yevamoth 10:1 are again listed here.

אי שכתב מלכות מדי – since it is necessary to write the name of the kingdom of the state in which the Jewish bill of divorce is written , out of concern for the peace of the kingdom, so that they will say, “we are important in their eyes where they write their documents in our names.

If the get was dated by an unfit kingship, by the empire of Medea, by the empire of Greece, by the building of the Temple or by the destruction of the Temple, Or if being in the east he wrote “in the west”, or being in the west he wrote “in the east”, She must leave this one and that one, and she also requires a get from this one and that one. She has no ketubah, no usufruct, no support money or worn clothes, neither from this one nor from that one. If she has taken anything from this one or that one, she must return it. The child from this one or that one is a mamzer. Neither this one nor that one may impurify himself for her. Neither this one and that one has a claim to whatever she may find, nor what she makes with her hands, nor to invalidate her vows. If she was the daughter of an Israelite, she becomes disqualified from marrying a priest; if the daughter of a Levite, from the eating of tithe; and if the daughter of a priest, from the eating of terumah. Neither the heirs of this one nor the heirs of that one are entitled to inherit her ketubah. And if [the husbands] die, the brother of the one and the brother of the other must perform halitzah, but may not contract yibbum. There are two potential problems with the writing of the get in this section. The first is that he dated the get to the wrong kingship. Documents used to be dated to the ruling empire, so in the Roman period, it would be invalid to date a get with dates from the Medean (Persian) or Greek empires. Furthermore, the rabbis ruled that even dating a document to the building or the destruction of the Temple is forbidden and invalidates the get. The second problem is that he wrote the wrong place. Although this would seemingly be a trivial point in writing the get, the rabbis were adamant that any deviation from the precise truth invalidates the get. As stated above, if this woman now remarries, she is an accidental adulteress and all of the following consequences apply. For further information, you can look back at Yevamoth 10:1. She must leave this one and that one, and she also requires a get from this one and that one: She must be divorced from each of them, for she is forbidden to each. She also needs a get from each of them. According to the talmudic interpretation, the get from the second husband is only of rabbinic origin, for according to biblical law, she is not married to the second man. She has no ketubah, no usufruct, no support money or worn clothes, neither from this one nor from that one: She does not receive any of the financial benefits that she would have accrued from her husband. If she has taken anything from this one or that one, she must return it: If she had taken any of these things to which she is not entitled, she must return them. Some times, in cases of doubt, possession is enough for a person not to have to return something. However, in this case, her possession is considered truly illegal and she must return what she took. The child from this one or that one is a mamzer: The child from the second husband is a mamzer because she gave birth to him while married to the first husband. Should she return to the first husband, the subsequent child will also be a mamzer. Neither this one nor that one may impurify himself for her: A priest is allowed to impurify himself to bury his wife. In this case, if either husband is a priest and she dies, they may not impurify themselves for her. Neither this one and that one has a claim to whatever she may find, nor what she makes with her hands, nor to invalidate her vows: These are all rights given to a husband during marriage. Since the marriage is now invalid, he loses all these rights. Invalidating vows is discussed in Numbers 30. If she was the daughter of an Israelite, she becomes disqualified from marrying a priest; if the daughter of a Levite, from the eating of tithe; and if the daughter of a priest, from the eating of terumah: The illicit marriage to the second husband disqualifies her from all rights that might be accrued from either kohanic or levitical status. The result is that she could no longer marry a priest nor eat tithe if her father was a Levite, nor eat terumah if her father was a priest. Neither the heirs of this one nor the heirs of that one are entitled to inherit her ketubah: According to a ketubah clause which we will see in chapter four of tractate Ketuboth, a woman’s male children inherit her ketubah. However, in this case they too are penalized and lose their inheritance. And if [the husbands] die, the brother of the one and the brother of the other must perform halitzah, but may not contract yibbum: Since both marriages were invalid, the brothers cannot perform yibbum. Note that according to the talmudic interpretation, the halitzah of the brother of the second husband is only of rabbinic origin, since according to Torah law the second marriage was not valid.

תצא מזה ומזה – if she married via the Jewish bill of divorce [that she had received], she should go free from the first [marriage] as well as from the second [marriage].

If his name or her name or the name of his town or the name of her town was wrongly given, she must leave both husbands and all the above consequences apply to her. If he made a mistake in writing his name, her name, his or her place of residence the get is invalid and all of the consequences mentioned in the previous section apply to her.

ואין לה לא פירות ולא בלאות וכו' – Our entire Mishnah is explained in the Tractate Yevamot in the chapter “The Great Wife” (Chapter 10, Mishnah 1).

והולד ממזר מזה ומזה – Our Mishnah [is according to] Rabbi Meir, who said that he who deviates from the coinage that the Sages formulated in [the realm of] Gittin/Jewish bills of divorce, the offspring are illegitimate/Mamzerim but this is not the Halakha.