Gittin - Daf 26
- Advance writing of a tofes and leaving the toref blank, מפני התקנה
The next Mishnah states: הכותב טופסי גיטין – One who writes tofsim (the standard elements) of gittin in advance, צריך שיניח מקום האיש ומקום האשה ומקום הזמן – he must leave blank the space for the man’s name, the woman’s name, and the date (called the “toref”). The parallel spaces of a loan or sale document must be similarly left blank. It concludes: מפני התקנה – This rule is for the purpose of improvement of a potential problem. Three interpretations of this last phrase are given. (1) Rebbe Yonasan says: מפני תקנת סופר – It is for the improvement of the scribe. The Tanna is Rebbe Elazar, who holds the toref requires לשמה. Ideally, the Rabbis would have required the tofes to be written לשמה as well (lest one forget to write the toref לשמה), but to enable scribes to have get forms in advance, allowed them to write the tofes beforehand. (2) Chizkiyah explains: משום קטטה – It is because of quarreling. The Tanna is Rebbe Meir, who does not require the writing to be לשמה. Fundamentally, the entire get could be written beforehand, but the Rabbis were concerned that the wife would overhear a scribe writing a toref with her name, suspect the husband requested it, and come to quarrel with him.
(3) Avimi explains: משום תקנת עגונות – to avoid a problem of agunos, which the Gemara goes on to explain can apply according to each Tanna.
- Why a predated get is invalid for an arusah – מפני תקנת הולד גזירה שמא יאמרו גיטה קודם לבנה
The Mishnah implies that a space must be left for the date of a get even in the case of an arusah. The Gemara wonders about its necessity: If the date in a get is so that one cannot protect his wife who had illicit relations (incurring the death penalty) (משום בת אחותו), it understandably applies equally to an arusah. But if it is to prevent the husband from selling her produce beyond the divorce (משום פירי), since the husband never owned the arusah’s produce, why should a predated get be invalid!? Rav Amram reported that Ulla explained: משום תקנת הולד – for the benefit of the child, but only understood what he meant after he heard a Baraisa that one who writes a get for his arusah, which he intends to use after nisuin, it is not a get. Ulla explained: גזירה שמא יאמרו גיטה קודם לבנה – It is a gezeirah because people might say her get preceded her child. That is, if the date precedes their nisuin, and the conception of her child, people will erroneously think she was actually divorced on that earlier date, and the child was conceived out of wedlock. To avoid this disgrace to the family, gittin whose dates were followed by relations were Rabbinically invalidated. For the same reason, they required the space of an arusah’s get be left blank until it is given.
- Rebbe Elazar of the Mishnah disallows writing the tofes of a get in advance
Rav said the halachah follows Rebbe Elazar of the Mishnah, who disallows writing the tofes of a get in advance and called him "טובינא דחכימי" – the most fortunate among wise men. The Gemara infers that Rav means to rule entirely like Rebbe Elazar, including his saying that one may write the tofes of all other documents (which do not require לשמה). The Gemara asks that they should be invalid for a different reason: Rav Pappi quoted Rava as saying that a Beis Din’s certification of signatures which is written before the signatures are confirmed is invalid (even if the judges sign afterwards), because מיחזי כשיקרא – it appears like falsehood. All documents written in advance should likewise be invalid!? The Gemara concludes that we are not concerned about מיחזי כשיקרא. This can be proven from Rebbe Yochanan’s statement, that a document which was used for a loan which was paid cannot be used for technical reasons, but not because it appears like falsehood.
