The first perek of mesechet Gittin devotes considerable discussion to the mechanism of the delivery of the get to the (soon to be former) wife. As taught in the first mishna, the operative words when making the transfer are that the get was written and signed by the witnesses before the person who has delivered the get to the wife.
Gittin 4 has two interesting points that I wanted to touch on. After having analyzed the mishna and compared it to R' Elazar and R' Meir, the gemara ultimately determines that the tanna kamma is really R' Yehuda. The gemara draws the conclusion by learning that if the get was written on a piece of live vegetation (like tree bark or plant leaf or stalk) R' Yehuda holds that the get is not valid unless it was both written and signed on the vegetation after it was disconnected from the earth.
Tosafos (d'h "Od") asks why the gemara needs to learn that the get was written and signed after the object was removed from the ground (there are other deyos that permit the get to be written while attached and then detached before execution). Tosafos answers that perhaps a person had ripped the plant out, written the get and then reinserted the plant in the ground for a long enough time for the plant's roots to reset and only then had the witnesses signed the get. Tosafos learns that even in this situation the get would be invalid as all actions must take place after the removal of the plant from the ground.
Following the completion of the process of identifying the tanna of the mishna, the gemara asks a question that I find myself asking from time to time - why didn't we just learn in the first place that R' Yehuda was the tanna of the mishna, rather than breaking down why it could not be R' Meir or R' Elazar. Unlike other circumstances where the answer might be D'rush v'kabel s'char, the gemara on Gittin 4a actually answers the question with the logic behind its actions. The gemara explains that we originally would have thought that it was R' Meir since we have a general principle of stam mishna R' Meir. Similarly, we would have though that it could be R' Elazar since we have a general principle that the halacha follows R' Elazar in relation to the laws of gittin (Tosafos d'h "D'Kayma" adds that this principle applies to all cases involving kiyum shtaros). We therefore needed to first attempt to attribute the mishna to R' Meir or R' Elazar before moving on to R' Yehuda.
Gittin 4 has two interesting points that I wanted to touch on. After having analyzed the mishna and compared it to R' Elazar and R' Meir, the gemara ultimately determines that the tanna kamma is really R' Yehuda. The gemara draws the conclusion by learning that if the get was written on a piece of live vegetation (like tree bark or plant leaf or stalk) R' Yehuda holds that the get is not valid unless it was both written and signed on the vegetation after it was disconnected from the earth.
Tosafos (d'h "Od") asks why the gemara needs to learn that the get was written and signed after the object was removed from the ground (there are other deyos that permit the get to be written while attached and then detached before execution). Tosafos answers that perhaps a person had ripped the plant out, written the get and then reinserted the plant in the ground for a long enough time for the plant's roots to reset and only then had the witnesses signed the get. Tosafos learns that even in this situation the get would be invalid as all actions must take place after the removal of the plant from the ground.
Following the completion of the process of identifying the tanna of the mishna, the gemara asks a question that I find myself asking from time to time - why didn't we just learn in the first place that R' Yehuda was the tanna of the mishna, rather than breaking down why it could not be R' Meir or R' Elazar. Unlike other circumstances where the answer might be D'rush v'kabel s'char, the gemara on Gittin 4a actually answers the question with the logic behind its actions. The gemara explains that we originally would have thought that it was R' Meir since we have a general principle of stam mishna R' Meir. Similarly, we would have though that it could be R' Elazar since we have a general principle that the halacha follows R' Elazar in relation to the laws of gittin (Tosafos d'h "D'Kayma" adds that this principle applies to all cases involving kiyum shtaros). We therefore needed to first attempt to attribute the mishna to R' Meir or R' Elazar before moving on to R' Yehuda.
If you have seen this post being carried on another site such as JBlog, please feel free to click here to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!
No comments:
Post a Comment