פירוש על גיטין 8:11

הזורק. הרי זו מגורשת – As it is written (Deuteronomy 24:1): “…[and he writes her a bill of divorcement], hands it to her...,” and since it is not written, “and in her hand he should give it,” implying nevertheless, “and he gives,” whether in her court or in her garden or in her enclosure. And [it means] that she is standing at the side of her house or at the side of her courtyard.

Introduction The first three mishnayoth of this chapter discuss a husband who throws his get to his wife. While a woman need not consent to being divorced, the husband must deliver the get into her possession and make her aware of the fact that she is being divorced. These mishnayoth define what it takes to fulfill these two requirements.

קלתה – a utensil in which women place yarn and needles/pins.

If a husband throws a get to his wife, and she is in her house or in her courtyard, she is divorced. The Torah states that the husband “puts the get in her hand” (Deuteronomy 24:1). The rabbis expand this requirement and allow the husband to put the get into any place which is in her possession.

הרי זו מגורשת – and even if she is inside his house, for the place of her lap and vase-shaped basket is acquired by her, for a man (i.e., husband) is not stringent regarding the place of her lap or on the place of her vase-shaped basket.

If he throws it to her in his house or in his courtyard, even though it is with her on the same bed, she is not divorced. In this case, she is on his property and hence he cannot just throw the get at her. This is true even if the husband puts the get into her bed, if the bed belongs to the husband, she is not divorced.

If he throws it into her lap or into her basket, she is divorced. If he puts the get into her lap or into her basket she is divorced. This is true even if she is standing on his property. Since her lap and basket belong to her, it is sufficient if he delivers the get to one of these places.

או שמצאתו מאחוריו – the Jewish bill of divorce was on his back and he curved his back towards her so that she could take it.

Introduction The first section of this mishnah deals with a husband who tries to sneak a get to his wife by telling her it is a different type of document or by giving it to her while she is asleep. Perhaps he wishes to avoid a face to face confrontation. The mishnah will teach us that he must state to her “Here is your get” in order for her to be divorced. The second section returns to the subject of a husband who throws a get to his wife.

אינו גט עד שיאמר טלי גטך – and he said [to her]: “take your Jewish bill of divorce,” however, it is a Jewish bill of divorce. But if the Jewish bill of divorce was on the ground, or on his back or or his body and he did not curve his back nor presented his body to her in order that she could take it, even if he said: “take your Jewish bill of divorce,” it is not a Jewish bill of divorce.

If he said to her, “Take in this debt document”, or if she found it behind him and read it and it turned out to be her get, it is not a get, until he says to her, “Here is your get.” In this case the husband tries to sneak the get to his wife either by telling her it was a debt document, or by hiding what it was until she picked it up. In either case the get is invalid unless he affirmatively states to her “Here is your get.”

קוראה והרי היא גיטה – and when she reads through it, he sees that it is her Jewish bill of divorce.

If he put it into her hand while she was asleep and when she woke up she read it and found it was her get, it is not a get until he says to her, “Here is your get.” Similarly, he may not place the get in her hand while she is sleeping and then just let her wake up and read it. Although he can divorce her against her will, he must at least tell her that she is being divorced.

קרוב לה מגורשת, קרוב לו אינה מגורשת – All the while that she is able to guard it, and he is unable to guard it, this is what is “close to her,” and all that she is unable to guard, but he is able to guard, it is “close to him.” Both of them are able to guard it or both of them are unable to guard it, this is half-and-half, and regarding a Halakhic decision, she is not divorced until the Jewish bill of divorce reaches her hand or her domain.

If she was standing in the public domain and he threw it to her, if it lands near her she is divorced, but if it lands near him she is not divorced. If it lands midway, she is divorced and not divorced. In this case she is standing on neutral ground, in the public domain which is neither his nor her property. According to the mishnah if the get lands close to her, it counts as if he actually gave it to her and she is divorced. The Talmud explains that in order for the get to be considered “close to her”, it must be within four amot (cubits). If it is in-between the two of them, let’s say two amot from her and two amot from him, then she is doubtfully divorced. In such a case, she would need another get in order to remarry.

אמר לו בעל חובו: זרוק לי חובי – In the Gemara we establish it for when the creditor says, throw me my debt (the monies owed by the debtor) in the [manner similar to the] nature of Jewish divorce, and since he [i.e., the creditor] said this to him [i.e., the borrower], this obligation of indebtedness has the same [format] as the law the law of Jewish divorce, for if the borrower threw it closer to the creditor, and it [became] lost , the borrower is acquitted and he is not liable to pay [again], but if it landed closer to the borrower, he is liable to pay. But if the creditor said to him: throw me my debt and it shall be dismissed, since he threw it to him in any matter, he is exempt.

Introduction The first section of the mishnah is a direct continuation of yesterday’s mishnah. It teaches that the laws concerning a husband throwing a get to his wife are the same as the laws of a man throwing betrothal money or a betrothal document to a woman or a borrower repaying his debt by throwing money at the creditor. The second half of the mishnah deals with a husband who is on a roof and throws a get down to his wife or is below and she is on the roof and he throws the get up to her.

לאויר הגג – wherever there is a gap of less than three handbreadths near the bottom of the roof, it isd considered a “Lavud” – the legal fiction of considering separated parts as united.

Similarly with betrothals and similarly with a debt. If a man’s creditor said to him, “Throw me my debt”, and he threw it to him, if it lands nearer to the creditor, the borrower is credited [with paying back his debt]; if it lands nearer to the borrower, the borrower is still obligated [to repay the money]; if it lands midway, they divide. The laws concerning throwing a get are the same when it comes to throwing betrothal money or documents or repaying monetary debts. The remainder of the mishnah illustrates the principle with regard to repaying debts. Note that the one difference between debts and divorce/betrothal is that in the latter case, if the document lands halfway, the woman is doubtfully divorced or doubtfully betrothed. There is no possibility of a woman being half divorced or betrothed. In contrast, when it comes to debts, people can split money. Therefore, if the money lands halfway between the two parties they split it and the borrower owes half the debt.

מרשות הגג – if it left the divided off space of the roof and entered into the partition of the space where it is standing (serving as a legal fiction – as if one of its broadside were prolonged to form a partition).

If she was standing on a roof and he threw it up to her, as soon as it reaches the airspace of the roof, she is divorced. If he was above and she below and he threw it to her, once it has left the space of the roof, [even were it to be immediately] erased or burnt, she is divorced. When the husband is standing below and she is standing on the roof, the get must reach the level of the roof for she to be divorced. In other words, her domain only begins at roof-level. Similarly, if he is standing on the roof, her domain begins at the level of the roof. If he drops the get, she is divorced as soon as the get enters her domain, which is below the level of the roof. Even if it briefly enters her domain and then is somehow erased (severe case of bird droppings?) or burnt (by a lightning bolt) she was divorced as soon as the get entered her domain.

או נשרף הרי זו מגורשת – the throwing of the Jewish bill of divorce into the courtyard preceded its being burned in the airspace of the courtyard, for if it had been burned in the courtyard first, in principle, from the beginning, it was being tossed into the fire, and she is not divorced.

בגט ישן – He [i.e., the husband] wrote to divorce his wife and after the Jewish bill of divorce had been written, he was [found to be] alone with her. The School of Shammai holds that we do not say that there is a decree lest people would say that her Jewish bill of divorce came before her children [arrived] lest the [delivery of the Jewish bill of divorce] is delayed a year or two [years] between the writing and the delivery, and she will have had children from him in the midst of that time and afterwards, will divorce her with it; and when people will see the date of the Jewish bill of divorce which is prior to the birth of her son, people would think that he [i.e., the husband] gave her the Jewish bill of divorce at the time it was written, and there would be a discredit [to her] as [people] would say that the children were born from a “free” (i.e., unmarried) woman, and the Halakhic decision is that a person should not divorce his wife with an “old Jewish bill of divorce.” But if the husband divorced her and then went to another country, she may ab initio, remarry through this.

Introduction In this mishnah Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel disagree over whether or not a get is valid if after its being written but before its being given the husband was secluded with his wife.

Bet Shammai says: a man may divorce his wife with an old get, But Bet Hillel forbids this. What is meant by an old get? One where he was secluded with her after he wrote it. Bet Hillel forbids a man to use an “old get” to divorce his wife. Bet Hillel is concerned lest while secluded the couple has sexual relations, she becomes pregnant and people think that the child was conceived after she was divorced, assuming that the divorce occurred only on the date written on the get. For instance, let’s say he had the get written in November, continued to live with her and she became pregnant in February, and he gave her the document in March before they knew that she was pregnant. People will think that he divorced her in November, the date written on the get, and that the kid was conceived after she was divorced. Therefore, Bet Hillel prohibits the use of an “old get.” Bet Shammai does not assume that just because they were secluded, they had sex. Therefore, he allows the husband to use the get so long as they were only secluded but did not actually have sex. We shall see at the end of the tractate, that Bet Shammai rules that a husband may divorce his wife only on the grounds of adultery. Since divorce is possible only under such circumstances, it is unlikely, and indeed forbidden, for the couple to have relations after he writes out a get.

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.

כל העריות שאמרו צרותיהן מותרות – fifteen rival wives (see Tractate Yevamot, Chapter 1, Mishnah 1) that the Sages say that [married severally to the brother of a man with whom marriage is forbidden] cause the exemption from levirate marriage [and from the removal of the shoe] (of their associates and eventually the associates of their associates] to marry in the market place without the removal of the shoe.

Introduction To understand this mishnah we must remind ourselves of the first chapter of Yevamoth, and especially mishnah four. There we learned that if a man was married to two women, and he died childless, and one of those women was forbidden to his brother, for instance the brother was married to that woman’s sister, not only is the prohibited woman herself exempt (a man may not marry two sisters) from yibbum/halitzah (Levirate marriage and release thereof) but her rival wives are also exempt.

הלכו הצרות – of women forbidden to a man on account of consanguinity

With regard to all of the near relatives concerning whom they said “their rivals are permitted to marry [without halitzah]”: If the rival wives went and married and it was then found that this one (the near relative) was an aylonit, [the rival wife who married] must leave both husbands and all these consequences apply to her. In our mishnah, a man was married to a woman who is prohibited to the yavam (brother-in-law) and he is also married to other women. When he dies, since one wife is prohibited to the yavam, all of her rival wives are exempt from yibbum and halitzah. The rival wives therefore remarry without halitzah. If it turns out that widow who was prohibited to the yavam was an aylonit, a woman who never reaches physical maturity, then her marriage to her first husband was invalid and her rival wives should have had halitzah with the brother-in-law before remarrying. Therefore, the remarried rival wives may not remain with their current husbands nor may they marry the yavam either. All of the above consequences also apply to them. This mishnah regards the child of a woman who did not undergo halitzah as a mamzer. However, the halakhah is not according to this mishnah and the child is not considered a mamzer.

ונשאו – in the marketplace

ונמצאו – these women forbidden to a man on account of consanguinity אילוניות – And the matter was discovered that they were betrothed in error to the dead man, and it was found that these were not their associates and that these women forbidden to a man on account of consanguinity were not exempted from the ceremony of her removing the shoe of her dead-husband’s brother who refused to marry her.

תצא מזה – from the husband that she had been married to and from the Yabam (the brother of the dead-husband, since she had had no issue from her husband). -

וכל הדברים האלו בה – And in [Tractate] Yevamot, we establish it according to Rabbi Akiba who said that there is are illegitimate children from the violation of negative commandments, but it is not the Halakha.

ונשאת לאחר – since we establish for us that the sexual act of the one exempts her associate co-wife.

Introduction This mishnah is quite similar to yesterday’s mishnah. Mishnah Seven

ונמצאת זו – who had been married by the dead-husband’s brother was found to be incapable of bearing children, her act of marrying her dead-husband’s brother is not effective, and she did not exempt her associate wives and went to the marketplace to get married without the ceremony of the removal of the shoe of her dead-husband’s brother [who refused to marry her].

If a man marries his sister-in-law and her rival wife goes and marries another man and it was found that the first is an aylonit, the other must leave both husbands and all these consequences apply to her. In today’s mishnah Reuven was married to two women, Rachel and Leah. When Reuven dies, Rachel marries Shimon, Reuven’s brother, thereby fulfilling the mitzvah of yibbum. Leah is free to marry an outsider, so she marries David. When it turns out that Rachel is an aylonit, her yibbum marriage to Shimon is invalidated. Leah has therefore married an outsider without halitzah, which according to our mishnah (but not the accepted halakhah), renders her marriage invalid and her child with her new husband a mamzer. She may not remain married to her husband, nor have yibbum with Shimon, and all of the consequences listed in mishnah five apply to her.

תצא מזה ומזה – [she should leave] this husband and from her first brother-in-law.

כתב סופר גט לאיש – [in order to] divorce his wife with it [the Jewish bill of divorce]

Introduction The first half of the mishnah deals with a situation where a scribe wrote a get for a husband to give to his wife and a receipt for payment of the ketubah for the wife to give to her husband. He accidentally switched the documents, giving the get to the wife and the receipt to the husband, whereupon the husband divorced his wife using a ketubah receipt. The problem is that this wife never received her get. The second half of the mishnah contains a debate between Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel over a husband who writes out a get to give to his wife but does not give it to her.

ושובר לאשה – [the receipt] that she will deliver to her husband when he has paid off her Ketubah.

If a scribe wrote a get for the husband and a receipt for the wife and by mistake gave the get to the wife and the receipt to the husband and the two exchanged them and after some time the get came out of the hands of the man and the receipt out of the hands of the woman, she must leave both husbands and all these things apply to her. Rabbi Elazar says: if [it comes out of her hands] immediately, it is not a get, but if [it comes out of her hands] after some time, it is a get; it is not in the power of the first to render void the right of the second. According to the first opinion in this section, since the wife never received her get she was never divorced. Hence her second marriage is invalid, and all of the consequences that applied in the previous mishnayot apply to her as well. Rabbi Elazar says that the get is invalid only in a case where she immediately noticed that she had received a ketubah receipt and not a get. If she only discovered that she had never received the get at a later time, she is considered divorced. The reason that she is considered divorced is that we fear that the husband and the wife may have made a deal in order to disrupt the second marriage. By her giving him back the get and his giving her back the receipt, they can make it look like she was never divorced. The first husband does not have the authority to ruin the second husband’s marriage.

וטעה הסופר – when he delivered the documents to them

If a man wrote a get with which to divorce his wife and then changed his mind, Bet Shammai says that he has disqualified her from marrying a priest. Bet Hillel says that even if he gave it to her with a certain stipulation, if the condition was not fulfilled, he has not disqualified her for marrying a priest. A priest cannot marry a divorced woman. According to Bet Shammai, even if a woman’s husband writes a get but does not give it to her, he has already disqualified her from subsequently marrying a priest. In contrast, Bet Hillel holds that even if he gives her the get with a condition (for instance, “here is your get if I don’t return within 12 months) and the condition is not fulfilled and the get is invalid, she is still not disqualified from marry a priest. The Yerushalmi (Palestinian Talmud) connects this Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel debate with their debate that appears in the last mishnah of the tractate. Since Bet Shammai says that a husband can divorce only on grounds of adultery, the very fact that the husband suspected her of adultery and therefore wrote out a get, disqualifies her from marrying a priest. In contrast, Bet Hillel allows divorce on nearly all grounds, and therefore does not see a disqualified get as disqualifying a woman from the priesthood.

ונתן גט לאשה ושובר לאיש – and they (i.e., the now-supposedly former husband and supposedly former wife) delivered [the appropriate documents] each to the other, and she went and married [someone else] thinking that this was the Jewish bill of divorce that her husband delivered to her and this one (i.e., the husband) thought that his wife had delivered him the receipt. And Maimonides has the reading: “and he (i.e., the scribe) gave the Jewish bill of divorce to the man and the receipt to the woman, and he explains [the word] “ונתן /and he gave” that he (i.e., the scribe) thought that he gave the Jewish bill of divorce to the man and the receipt to the woman but [in reality] he did the exact opposite, and this is [a] forced [interpretation].

אם לאלתר – all the while that she did not marry, the Jewish bill of divorce left the hands of the husband

אינו גט – and she requires a new Jewish bill of divorce

ואם לאחר שנשאת – behold, this is a [legitimate] Jewish bill of divorce

לא כל הימנו – Everything is not according to the words of the first husband to believe him.

לאבד זכותו של שני – [of the second husband] that she married, for we say that there was a conspiracy between them and they switched the documents after she had married. And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Eliezer

ולנה עמו בפונדקי – and there are witnesses testifying of the privacy between a man and a woman there but there are no witnesses there for the actual sexual act. The School of Hillel holds that the witnesses testifying to the privacy between a man and a woman are the very same individuals who testify about the actual sexual act, for the presumption is that nobody wants to make his intercourse with a woman one of prostitution (but wants to make her his wife thereby –see Talmud Ketubot 73a), for he has betrothed her with his sexual act. And the School of Shammai holds that they don’t say that the witnesses testifying the privacy between a man and a woman are not the very same individuals who testify about the actual sexual act, until she demonstrates that she has engaged in sexual relations.

Introduction The first section of the mishnah deals with a man who is suspected of having sexual relations with his divorcee. The second section deals with a “bald get”, one that does not have the proper number of signatures.

גט קרח – [a Jewish bill of divorce that lacks signatures on each of its folds] – that its folds are greater than its witnesses (see the next Mishnah for this definition), for the Rabbis decreed a folded [bill of divorce] document because of impetuous Kohanim who would suddenly write a Jewish bill of divorce for their wives and then regret it and they would not be able to restore them [as their wives] (since Kohanim are prohibited, according to the Torah, to marry a divorcee), and they (i.e., the Rabbis) decreed for them a folded Jewish bill of divorce, which is not easy to write quickly, lest while it is [being written], he becomes appeased. Hence, they write one or two lines and wrap them on the blank part and sew it/fasten it and one witness affixes his signature on the outside part of the fold, and then he returns and writes two or more lines from inside and folds them on the blank part, and the other witnesses affixes his signature on the outside part of the fold, and similarly [for] the third witness. But if there is a fold that is binding them without the signature of a witness from the back, it is a Jewish bill of divorce lacking signatures on each of its fold and is invalid. For by definition, for the number of folds should be the number of witnesses, ab initio, for we are concerned that perhaps the husband said to them: “you will all affix your signatures,” but one witness did not affix his signature, and if the woman married with this Jewish bill of divorce, she should leave both this one (i.e., her new husband) as well as that one {i.e., her former husband). And all of these foregoing conditions apply to her. And our Mishnah is according to Rabbi Meir who said that whomever changes from the formula that our Sages established (see Talmud Gittin 5b), In Jewish bills of divorce, the offspring are illegitimate. But this is not the Halakha.

A man divorces his wife and then stays with her over night in an inn: Bet Shammai says: she does not require from him a second get, But Beth Hillel say she does require a second get from him. When is this so? When she was divorced after marriage. And [Beth Hillel] agrees that if she is divorced after betrothal, she does not require a second get from him, because he would not [yet] take liberties with her. If a divorced woman is secluded with her ex-husband, Bet Hillel suspects that they may have had sexual relations and through the sexual act he betrothed her again (we shall learn about how betrothal is performed in the beginning of Kiddushin). Since they may have remarried, she requires another get from him. Bet Shammai is not suspicious that they had sexual relations and therefore does not require another get. Again, this debate may be connected with their debate over the grounds for divorce. Since Bet Shammai holds that divorce can only be a result of adultery (or at least suspected adultery), it is less likely that the couple will again engage in sexual relations. Bet Hillel holds that a man may divorce his wife for almost no reason and therefore there is a greater chance at reconciliation. However, Bet Hillel suspects that the divorced couple may have sex only if they were already married and assumedly had already had sexual relations while married. In this case, their prior intimacy increases the likelihood that when secluded they will again become intimate. If the divorce occurred after their betrothal but before they were ever married, since they had never been intimate before, it is less likely that they will now engage in sex. Therefore, in such a situation she does not require a second get.

If a man marries a [divorced] woman through a “bald” get, she must leave both husbands and all the above-mentioned consequences apply to her. A “bald get” is a “sewn document”, as described in Bava Batra 10:1-2. There we learned that to protect forgeries people would sew several folds into their documents, having people sign on each fold. A “bald get” is one where there are more folds than signatures. It is “bald” because it is missing signatures and is therefore invalid. Since it is invalid, she was not properly divorced from her first husband when she married her second husband and all of the consequences which were discussed in mishnah five (and mentioned in 6-8) apply to her as well.

הכל משלימין עליו – and even a slave, and even someone who is ineligible to provide testimony on account of sin.

Introduction At the end of yesterday’s mishnah we learned that a woman who was divorced with a “bald get” is not divorced. Our mishnah explains what a “bald get” is and how it can be fixed.

אלא קרוב שהוא ראוי להעיד בעדות אחרת – for he doesn’t have disqualification to give testimony other than for those near. But a slave or a thief cannot. A slave, - perhaps he will come to bring up genealogical connections; and a thief, perhaps he will come to say that he effectuated repentance; but someone related, everyone knows concerning him that he is a relative, and the Halakah is according to Ben Nanas that anyone may complete it. Nevertheless, only one ineligible witness may affix his signature upon it, and all the rest, require that all of them are valid [witnesses].

A “bald” get anyone can complete its signatures, the words of Ben Nannas. But Rabbi Akiva says that it may be completed only by relatives who are qualified to testify elsewhere. What is a “bald” get? One which has more folds than signatures. It would be helpful to explain this mishnah backwards. The end of the mishnah clarifies that a “bald get” is one which has more folds than signatures. As I explained yesterday, some documents were folded and sewn on the folds to prevent forgeries. One person would sign on each fold, and there could be many folds. If there are any folds without signatures, then the document/get is invalid. However, in order to validate this get, it need not have perfectly acceptable witnesses sign. According to Ben Nannas, if at least two valid witnesses have already signed all that is needed is an additional signature for each fold and, that signature may be from a person who normally disqualified from testifying. This would include relatives and gamblers. Rabbi Akiva restricts the leniency to relatives who would otherwise be allowed to testify, but would not normally be allowed to in this case. Gamblers and others who are always invalid could not complete the “bald get.”