Bava Batra 167a — the Talmud in English

And he makes them into zuz.

The perוטot are totaled and included in dinars, so that instead of one hundred and ninety-two perוטot, one dinar is written.

What will you say,

but what would you wish to say—that the intention is

six hundred istrai and a zuz,

to six hundred sela and a zuz. But since it can also be interpreted that the intention is six hundred zuz [which is a quarter of a sela, for a sela is four dinars], then

the hand of the bearer of the document is on the lower side,

and he collects only zuz.

Abaye said: One who wishes to show his handwriting signatures in the court,

a person who wishes to present a sample of his handwriting before the court so that they can compare it with his signature on the document,

Let him not show it at the end of a scroll.

He should not sign himself at the end of the parchment and send it to the court,

lest another find it,

lest a swindler find the parchment,

and write that he is owed money by him,

lest he write at the top of the parchment, above his signature, “I, the undersigned, borrowed such-and-such money from so-and-so,” and through this he could collect from him, for

we learned

below [175b]:

If one brought against him his handwriting,

one who brought against his fellow a document signed only with his handwriting, without the signatures of witnesses,

that he owes him

money, then

the lender collects

the lender

from unencumbered properties

of the borrower. But not from encumbered properties, because the legal status of this document is not that of a full document, but only that of an oral loan, from which one does not collect from encumbered properties.

And therefore he should sign himself only at the top of the parchment, so that no person can write anything above his signature.

There was this tax collector

who came before Abaye,

an incident involving a tax collector who came before Abaye.

He said to him,

the tax collector said to Abaye:

Let the master show me his handwriting signatures,

show me; write your signature,

so that when the Sages come and show me,

so that when the Sages reach the tax crossing and present me with a request bearing your signature to release them from paying the tax,

I shall let them pass without tax,

I shall let them pass without paying the tax, based on my comparison with your signature that I possess.

He showed it to him at the head of the scroll.

Abaye wished to sign himself at the top of the parchment.

He was pulling it

the tax collector was pulling the parchment so that Abaye would sign at the bottom.

He said to him,

Abaye said:

The Sages have already preceded you!

And they warned against signing only at the top of the parchment, out of concern for swindlers like you.

Abaye said: From three through ten,

from the number three through the number ten,

one should not write at the end of a line,

so that a person should not write in a document at the end of the line that he borrowed an amount of three or more of a certain coin,

lest he forge and write,

lest the lender forge and make thirty out of three or forty out of four, and so on up to ten. But from eleven onward there is no concern in writing there, since if the lender wishes to forge ten into twenty, he will also have to insert a vav between the one and the ten, so that it will be twenty-one. And because the vav enters there with difficulty, they will recognize the forgery.

And if it happened to him,

and if nevertheless he happened to write the number three or four at the end of the line,

let him repeat his statement two or three times,

let him repeat the amount later in the document, even two or three times, and then

it is impossible that it should not happen to him in the middle of a line.

It must happen at least once that the amount appears in the middle of the line, and there it is impossible to forge and add letters; and then, even if the lender forged earlier, we will not learn only from the lower one, as explained in our Mishna.

There was this document in which it was written

an incident involving a document in which it was written that so-and-so sold to so-and-so

a third in the orchard.

That is, a third of his orchard.

He went and erased its bet’s roof and its leg,

the purchaser went and erased part of the bet’s roof and its leg,

and made it

and made from it

“and the orchard.”

For in place of the bet there was now a vav, and its meaning now was that he sold him a third of his field and, in addition, the entire orchard.

He came before Abaye.

He said to him,

Abaye said to the purchaser:

Why is there so much space around this vav?

Why is the place of the vav of “and the orchard” so spacious?

He bound him and he confessed!

Abaye compelled him to confess to the forgery he had committed.

There was this

document

in which it was written

that so-and-so purchased

the portion of Reuben and Simeon, brothers,

the portions of the brothers Reuben and Simeon in a field that they had inherited from their father.

They had a brother whose name was Ahi.

Reuben and Simeon had another brother named “Ahi,” who also had a portion in that field.

He went and wrote a vav in it,

the purchaser went and added a vav before “Ahi,”

and made it

“and Ahi.”

That is, that he had also purchased the portion of the third brother, whose name was “Ahi.”

He came before Abaye.

He said to him,

Abaye said:

Why is there so little space for this vav?

Why did the vav enter there with such constriction?

He bound him, and he confessed

that it was a forgery.

There was this document upon which Rava and Rav Aha bar Adda had signed,

for both of them were signed upon it.

It came before Rava

they showed the document to Rava.

He said to him,

Rava said to the bearer of the document:

This is my handwriting signature,

indeed, this is my signature,

but I never signed before Rav Aha bar Adda!

Rather, I never signed before Rav Aha bar Adda as I am signed in this document.

He bound him and he confessed!

Rava compelled him to confess that he had forged his signature.

He said to him

Rava said to the forger:

Granted, you forged mine,

you succeeded in forging my signature.

But

his signature

of Rav Aha bar Adda, whose hand trembles,

whose hands tremble and whose writing is broken,

how did you do it

how did you succeed in forging it?

He said

to him:

I placed my hand on the rope,

I placed my hand on the rope stretched over the river from bank to bank, which constantly sways because those crossing the bridge hold it, and in this way I also succeeded in forging the trembling of Rav Aha bar Adda’s hand.

And some say,

there are those who say that he succeeded in forging it by

standing on a water-drawing bucket,

standing on the bucket with which water is drawn from the well, while his entire body trembled,

and writing.

And thus he forged Rav Aha bar Adda’s signature.

Mishna:

The witnesses are not permitted to sign a document unless it was prepared with the consent of the party obligated by this document. When are these words said? When the person obligated by the document can object to its being written. But if he has no right to object, or if the document is to his benefit and it is clear that he wants it, the witnesses write and sign the document even without his knowledge. And therefore:

They write a divorce document for a man, even though his wife is not with him.

A divorce document may be written for a husband divorcing his wife, and the witnesses may sign it even without his wife’s presence and without her consent, and the husband may divorce her with it whenever he wishes, since the woman’s consent is not required for her divorce.

And

the witnesses write and sign

the receipt [

a receipt for payment of her marriage settlement]

for a woman, even though her husband is not with her.

She will guard it until her husband pays her the marriage settlement, and then she will give him the receipt in her possession. For the receipt is to the husband’s benefit, and therefore his consent is not required for its writing.

Provided that he recognizes them.

This will be explained in the Gemara.

And the husband gives

the

fee

of the scribe of the divorce document, for the reason that will be explained in the Gemara. And likewise the fee of the scribe who writes the receipt, because the receipt is to the husband’s benefit, through it the woman will not be able to claim her marriage settlement again; therefore he must pay the expense of writing it.