Комментарий к Гиттин 9:5

שני גיטין שוין – in their names

Introduction The first section of this mishnah is about two men with the same name who both send a get to their wives, who also share the the same name, and the one delivering the gittin mixes the two of them up. (You can imagine what kind of mail problems they must have had!) The final two sections are about five men who try to combine their gittin into one document, perhaps in an attempt to save the costs of the parchment and the scribe.

הרי השני בטל – for we don’t know whom he is

Two men sent two identical gittin [to their wives] and they became mixed up they give both of them to this wife and both of them to this wife. Therefore, if one of them was lost the other is void. Since we don’t know which get belongs to which woman, both gittin must be given to each woman. If one of the two mixed-up gittin is lost, then neither woman can be divorced because we don’t know if she is receiving the get from her husband. This requirement is related to the halakhah which we learned in chapter three that a get must be written specifically for the wife being divorced. Although both gittin are exactly the same, they both have to be given to the right woman.

כלל – one time for all of them, on such-and-such day of the week, so-and-so divorced this woman and that person divorced the other person.

If five men wrote jointly in the same get, “So-and-so divorces so-and-so and so-and-so [divorces] so-and-so and the witnesses [signed] below, all are valid and the get is to be given to each [of the women]. The mishnah teaches that multiple men can divorce their wives with the same document. In order for the get to be valid for all of the wives, they must write the names of the divorcing men and their wives before the formula. This way it is clear that the formula refers to all five husbands and that the witnesses are signing on all five gittin. In addition, the get must be given to each woman, since a woman is not divorced until she receives the get in her hand.

טופס לכל אחת – a particular time to each one, on such-and-such a day of the week, a certain man divorced a certain woman and completed [the writing of] the Jewish bill of divorcer. And on such -and-such a day of the week a certain man divorced a certain woman and completed the Jewish bill of divorce, and similarly for all of them. And the witnesses [sign] below at the bottom.

If the scribe wrote out the formula for each one and the witnesses signed below, only the one with which the signatures are read is valid. In this case, the scribe writes out what is essentially a separate get for each man, complete with a divorce formula for each one. Therefore, it may look as if the witnesses who signed on the bottom of the get are only attesting to the last get. This is “the one with which the signatures are read.” Hence, only this get is valid.