גיטין ע״ט ב:י״ח-פ׳ א:א׳

And the third matter relates to that which Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: On Shabbat a person should not stand on this roof and collect rainwater from the roof of another if there is no joining of courtyards. As just as the residences are separated below, so too, the residences are separated above. Each residence has a separate domain, and it is forbidden by rabbinic law to transfer an item from a private domain to another private domain if they are not joined. Similarly, despite the fact that the roofs are not totally separated from one another and nobody lives there, each roof is considered to be its own domain.,Rava explains: This matter applies only with regard to Shabbat. But with regard to a bill of divorce, if it fell onto another roof that is adjacent to the roof that he lent her for the purpose of acquiring the bill of divorce, she is divorced. The reason that a woman is usually not divorced when a bill of divorce falls into a different place, even though that place also belongs to her husband, is due to the fact that a husband is particular and does not want to lend her more than one place; but people are not particular to that extent, i.e., in this case the husband would not be particular about allowing her to temporarily use an adjacent rooftop that also belongs to him.,§ Abaye says: If there are two courtyards that are configured such that this courtyard is within that courtyard, and the inner courtyard is hers and the outer courtyard is his, and the partitions of the outer courtyard extend higher than the partitions of the inner courtyard, and he threw a bill of divorce to her into her courtyard, once it reaches the airspace of the partitions of the outer courtyard, i.e., it reaches the area above the inner courtyard at a height lower than the height of the partitions of the outer courtyard, she is divorced.,What is the reason for this? The inner courtyard itself is secured by the partitions of the outer courtyard. Therefore, the outer partitions service the inner courtyard as well. If the bill of divorce is secured by being encompassed by the outer partitions, it can be viewed as belonging to the inner courtyard once it reaches its airspace.,The Gemara comments: This is not so with regard to baskets. In a case where there were two baskets, this one within that one, resting in a domain that does not belong to either of them, and the inner basket is hers and the outer basket is his, and he threw a bill if divorce to her into her basket, even if the bill of divorce reached the airspace of the inner basket but was burned or taken before it landed therein, she is not divorced.,What is the reason for this? It is because the bill of divorce did not yet rest within the basket, and in this case, the walls of the outer basket do not service the inner basket.,The Gemara asks: And when it rests within the basket, what of it? They are like the vessels of a buyer in the domain of the seller, since her basket is within his basket, which is his domain. She cannot acquire the bill of divorce, despite the fact that it is in her basket, since it is within his domain.,The Gemara answers: With what are we dealing here? With a basket that has no bottom, and consequently the inner basket is resting on the ground and not inside the outer basket. Therefore, once the bill of divorce lands inside the inner basket, she is indeed divorced.,MISHNA: Beit Shammai say: A man may send, i.e., divorce, his wife with an outdated bill of divorce, and Beit Hillel prohibit him from doing so. And what is an outdated bill of divorce? Any case where he was secluded with her after he wrote it for her and before he gave it to her.,GEMARA: The Gemara explains: With regard to what do they disagree? Beit Shammai hold that we do not say that the bill of divorce is not valid due to a rabbinic decree, lest they say that receipt of her bill of divorce precedes conception of her son. If he gives her the bill of divorce long after it was written, she may give birth to children from him in the interim. There is a concern that people will say that she was actually divorced on the date written on the bill of divorce before the children were born, and the children were conceived through licentious sexual intercourse.,And Beit Hillel hold that we do say that this bill of divorce is not valid due to a rabbinic decree, lest they say that receipt of her bill of divorce precedes conception of her son. Consequently, if a woman was secluded with her husband following the writing of the bill of divorce, the bill of divorce is not valid.,Rabbi Abba says that Shmuel says: Even according to Beit Hillel, if the woman was married on the basis of an outdated bill of divorce given to her by her previous husband, who did not ask advice from the rabbis, she need not leave her second husband. In such a case, this decree is not severe enough to invalidate the bill of divorce.,And there are those who say that Rabbi Abba says that Shmuel says: If she was divorced with an outdated bill of divorce, this woman can marry even ab initio on the basis of this bill of divorce. There is no requirement for her to wait for her first husband to write her a new bill of divorce.,MISHNA: If he wrote the date on the bill of divorce using a calendrical system that counts years in the name of a kingdom that is not legitimate, or he wrote the date in the name of the kingdom of Media, or in the name of the Greek Empire, after it ceased to exist, or he wrote the date counting to the building of the Temple, or counting to the destruction of the Temple, in all these case, the bill of divorce is not valid. In the time of the mishna, the local government was particular that documents be dated with the official government date. Therefore, the Sages instituted that this must be done in bills of divorce as well. If one deviates from this practice, the rabbinic dictates of bills of divorce have been violated, and the bill of divorce is invalid.,If he was in the east and he wrote the location in the bill of divorce as in the west, or if he was in the west and he wrote the location in the bill of divorce as in the east, the bill of divorce is not valid. If he divorced her with this bill of divorce and she remarried, she must leave both this first husband and that second husband, and she needs a bill of divorce from this husband and that husband.,And she does not receive payment of her marriage contract, and not the profits from her properties that her husband consumed, and she does not have a claim to receive sustenance, and she does not have a claim to worn clothes that belonged to her, but which her husband used. She cannot demand these items, not of this husband and not of that husband.,If she took any of these items from this husband or from that husband, she must return what was taken. And the child that was born from this husband or from that husband that was conceived after she married the second husband is a son born from an adulterous relationship [mamzer]. And neither this husband nor that husband, if they are priests, is permitted to become ritually impure by her when she dies, which a husband may ordinarily do for his wife. And neither this husband nor that husband have the rights to objects she finds, or to her earnings, or to the annulment of her vows.,If she was an Israelite woman, then through these two marriages she becomes disqualified from marrying into the priesthood, due to the prohibition against a priest marrying a zona. If she was the daughter of a Levite, through these two marriages she becomes prohibited from partaking of the tithe that is given to Levites. If she was the daughter of a priest, she becomes prohibited from partaking of teruma, even after she returns to the house of her father the priest.,And the heirs of this husband and the heirs of that husband do not inherit the rights to collect payment of her marriage contract if she dies. And if the husbands die, the brother of this first husband and the brother of that second husband perform ḥalitza, since she was betrothed to the second one as well, and they do not consummate the levirate marriage.,The mishna proceeds to teach an additional halakha concerning a bill of divorce written not in accordance with its halakhot: If he changed his name, i.e., he wrote a different name in the bill of divorce, or he changed her name, or if he changed the name of his city or the name of her city, and she remarried on the basis of this bill of divorce, then she must leave both this first husband and that second husband. And all of those above-mentioned ways of penalizing a woman who remarried based on the bills of divorce detailed in the earlier clause of the mishna apply to her in this case as well.,The mishna teaches another halakha associated with the previous halakhot: With regard to all of those cases in which they said that a man who died without children and left behind a widow who is, to the man’s brother, one of those with whom relations are forbidden, e.g., she is his wife’s sister, not only is there no levirate bond for her, but the rival wives of the brother who died are also permitted to marry without either levirate marriage or ḥalitza.,The mishna discusses another case: These rival wives went and married another man without ḥalitza, and these widows with whom relationships were forbidden were found to be sexually underdeveloped women incapable of bearing children [ailonit]. Therefore, it became clear, retroactively, that the marriage to the dead brother was never valid, and accordingly, the rival wives were never exempt from the obligation of levirate marriage due to their being the rival wives of a forbidden relationship. Consequently, the rival wives were forbidden to marry anyone else without ḥalitza, and the rival wives must leave both this man whom they remarried, and that yavam, i.e., they cannot enter into levirate marriage with him. And all of those above-mentioned ways of penalizing a woman who remarried based on the bills of divorce detailed in the earlier clause of the mishna apply to her in this case as well.,Similarly, with regard to one who marries his yevama, and her rival wife went and got married to another man, and it was found that this yevama was a sexually underdeveloped woman, the rival wife must leave this man whom she remarried and that yavam, i.e., she cannot enter into levirate marriage with him. Because the yevama was a sexually underdeveloped woman, the obligation of levirate marriage never applied to her, and her levirate marriage did not exempt her rival wife. And all of those aforementioned ways of penalizing a woman who remarried based on the bills of divorce detailed in the earlier clause of the mishna apply to her in this case as well.,The mishna now discusses another case: A scribe wrote a bill of divorce for a man, so that the man could divorce his wife with it; and he wrote a receipt for the woman, for her to give to her husband upon receiving payment of her marriage contract, verifying that she received the payment. And the scribe erred and gave the bill of divorce to the woman and the receipt to the man, and not knowing what was written in the documents that were in their possession, they gave what they received from the scribe to each other. The woman gave her husband a bill of divorce and the husband gave his wife a receipt, and consequently, there was no divorce at all.,And after some time, the bill of divorce is in the possession of the man, and the receipt is in the possession of the woman, and they discover that the divorce never actually transpired. If the woman had remarried another man, she must leave this, the first husband, and that, the second husband. And all of those above-mentioned ways of penalizing a woman who remarried based on the bills of divorce detailed in the earlier clause of the mishna apply to her in this case as well.,Rabbi Elazar says: If the bill of divorce is immediately [le’altar] in the husband’s possession, this is not a valid bill of divorce, since he clearly never gave it to her. But if it is in his possession after some time, then this is a valid bill of divorce, since it is not in the power of the first husband to eliminate the right of the second husband. The assumption is that the husband did in fact give her the bill of divorce in the correct manner, but at some point, he took it back from her.,GEMARA: It was stated in the mishna that if one wrote the date on a bill of divorce according to a kingdom that is not legitimate, it is invalid. The Gemara asks: What is the meaning of the description: A kingdom that is not legitimate? The Gemara answers: This is referring to the Roman Empire, and he wrote the bill of divorce in a different country, such as Babylonia, where the Romans were not in power. And why is it called: A kingdom that is not legitimate? Because they have neither their own script, nor their own language, but rather, they took them from other nations.,Ulla said: For what reason did the Sages institute that the date should be written according to the years of the local kingdom, in bills of divorce? Due to the need to maintain peaceful relations with the kingdom, as the government is particular that important documents issued in its domain be written with the date of that government.,The Gemara asks: But due to an ordinance instituted by the Sages solely for the sake of maintaining peaceful relations with the kingdom, would they be so stringent that the woman would be forced to leave her husband, and they would declare the status of the offspring is a mamzer?,The Gemara answers: Yes. Rabbi Meir conforms to his line of reasoning. As Rav Hamnuna says in the name of Ulla: Rabbi Meir would say that anyone deviating from the formula coined by the Sages for bills of divorce, even if it is only a minor deviation, the bill of divorce is invalid, and if the woman remarried on the basis of this bill of divorce, then the offspring from that marriage is a mamzer.,It was stated in the mishna: If he wrote the date on a bill of divorce in the name of the Greek Empire, then the bill of divorce is invalid. The Gemara comments: And it is necessary to state this halakha and the other halakhot as well. As, if the mishna had taught us this halakha only with regard to a kingdom that is not legitimate, one could say that the bill of divorce is invalid because this kingdom is currently ruling, and the local government where he is writing the bill of divorce therefore objects to his writing the date of an another kingdom. But with regard to the kingdom of Media, and the Greek Empire, it is not necessary to invalidate the bill of divorce, since what was, was, and since these kingdoms are no longer in power, the local government is not particular if they are mentioned in a document.,And if the mishna had taught us this halakha with regard to the kingdom of Media and the Greek Empire, one could understand the concern, because they were kingdoms, and the current government objects to another kingdom being mentioned in a document. But if he wrote the date counting to the building of the Temple, then one could say what was, was, and the local government is not particular if this is mentioned in a document. Consequently, it was necessary for the mishna to teach us this halakha as well.,And if the mishna had taught us this halakha with regard to the building of the Temple, then one could say that the reason why this is problematic is because the governments will say: The Jews mention their own praise, instead of honoring the ruling government. But with regard to the destruction of the Temple, which is a cause of anguish for us, say that no, the government is not particular about this. Therefore it is necessary to mention all of these halakhot.,§ It was stated in the mishna, that if he was in the east and he wrote the location in the bill of divorce as in the west, then the bill of divorce is invalid. The Gemara asks: Who is the mishna discussing? If we say that the place of the husband was changed, then this is the same as what is stated later on in the mishna: He changed his name, or her name; the name of his city or the name of her city.,Rather, is it not referring to a scribe who changed the place in which the bill of divorce was written, and did not record the correct location where he was when he wrote the bill of divorce? As Rav said to his scribes, and similarly, Rav Huna said to his scribes: When you are situated in the place called Shili, write the location of the document as: In Shili, even though the matters were presented to you, i.e., the transaction recorded in the document took place, in the place called Hini. And when you are situated in the place called Hini, write: In Hini, even though the matters were presented to you in Shili. One must be careful to write the precise location where the document was written and not somewhere else, as that is considered an illegitimate deviation.,Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: