Why not begin by defining what is a get? TB Gittin 2

Today we begin massekhet TB Gittin with daf 2. Massekhet Gittin basically deals with one topic, how does a husband divorce his wife. Although the word get (גֵּט ) just means a document, in common parlance it is a bill of divorce. A husband can appoint an agent in his stead to deliver the get and a wife can appoint an agent to receive the get. Each get must be written explicitly for the sake of divorcing a specific couple.

As the Mishnah stands right now, it provides four different opinions when the agent of the husband has to say before delivering the get, “This bill of divorce was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence”

1.    An agent who brings a bill of divorce [get] from a husband to his wife from a country overseas, i.e., from outside of Eretz Yisrael to Eretz Yisrael, is required to state the following formula when he hands over the bill of divorce: This bill of divorce was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence.

2.    Rabban Gamliel says: Even one who brings a bill of divorce from Rekem (which most commentators identify it as the city southeast of the land of Israel, near Petra-gg) or from Ḥeger (commentators identify the city just south of Be’er Sheva-gg), which are on the periphery of Eretz Yisrael, must make this declaration

3.    Rabbi Eliezer says: Even one who brings a bill of divorce from the village of Ludim to Lod must also make this declaration, despite the fact that these places are only a short distance apart. The reason is that the village of Ludim was not part of the main area settled by Jews in Eretz Yisrael.

4.    And the Rabbis say that one is required to say: It was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence, only if he brings a bill of divorce from a country overseas to Eretz Yisrael, and the same applies to one who delivers a bill of divorce from Eretz Yisrael to a country overseas. And likewise an agent who brings a bill of divorce from one region to another region within the overseas countries is also required to say: It was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence.

a.     Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: This halakha applies not only to an agent who brings a bill of divorce from one country to another, but even to one who takes it from one district [hegmonya] to another district in the same country. (An example would be West Berlin and East Berlin during the Cold War-gg) (Sefaria.org translation)

 

Rabba and Rav disagree about the reason of this rabbinic enactment that the agent has to say, “This bill of divorce was written in my presence and it was signed in my presence”

“Rabba says: It is because the people who live overseas are not experts in writing a bill of divorce for her sake. It is not sufficient for a bill of divorce to be written in a technically correct manner. It must also be written for the sake of the man and the woman who are divorcing. Therefore, when the witness comes before the court and says that it was written and signed in his presence, he is testifying that the writing and the signing of the bill of divorce were performed for the sake of the man and woman in question.

“Rava says a different reason: It is because there are no witnesses available to ratify it. Since the bill of divorce was written in a distant place, it is possible that the husband, or someone else, might later claim that the bill of divorce is a forgery. For this reason the agent must say that the bill of divorce was written and signed in his presence, a declaration that bars any subsequent objection on the part of the husband.” (Sefaria.org translation. 

More this disagreement as we progress through this chapter.

One more question needs to be addressed. Why does our massekhet begin with this topic instead of answering more fundamental questions like what are all the laws concerning the get itself? I’ll provide two possible answers. First of all, the bill of divorce is a Torah law and having the agent declare this declaration is rabbinic in origin. The rabbis enjoyed discussing rabbinic law first because it was beloved in their eyes. Secondly, the end of the marriage with divorce is always sad because the promise and hope of the couple underneath the wedding canopy was not fulfilled. The rabbis did not want to begin the massekhet with such a sad note. The divorce is not final when the agent makes his declaration.