Bava Batra 172b (קעב:) — the Talmud in English

Rav Huna said:

the wording

“from you”

that is written in the document includes every person, and its meaning is that he borrowed

even from the Exilarch—

from the head of the Diaspora,

and even from Shapur the king.

And one must be concerned that perhaps the Exilarch or another person lent it to him, it fell from his possession, and this person found it.

Rav Hisda said to Rabba: Go out and examine it,

go and investigate this halakha,

as he will ask about it in the evening

for in the evening he will ask about it

Rav Huna will ask you—

he will ask you for your view on this matter.

He went out, examined it, and found,

Rabba went out, carefully investigated the halakha, and found this beraita,

as it was taught:

A bill of divorce upon which there are witnesses but in which there is no date

is one of the three types of bills of divorce invalidated by rabbinic decree; and if she married another using this bill of divorce, the child is valid, as explained in Gittin [86a].

Abba Shaul says: If it is written in it, “I divorced her today,”—

it is valid

the bill of divorce.

Apparently,

it follows from the beraita that the wording

“today”

means that day on which it is issued,

meaning the day on which the bill of divorce leaves his possession in the court and passes into the woman’s possession so that she may be divorced with it; and it is considered a fully valid date.

Here too,

similarly here, the wording

“from you”

means from that man from whose possession it emerges,

meaning from the person whose possession the document leaves, since the court sees that the document is in his possession. It is therefore as though the name of the lender were written in the document, and it is not necessary for a more explicit wording than this to be written in the document.

Abaye said to

Rabba:

Perhaps

it may be that

Abba Shaul,

who validated a bill of divorce in which no date was written, but only the wording “today,” did so only because he does not require a date to be written in a bill of divorce. For perhaps he holds

in accordance with Rabbi Eliezer, who said: The witnesses to delivery

who saw the bill of divorce being delivered to the woman

effect the divorce

they are the ones who effect and establish the bill of divorce; therefore, the bill of divorce is valid even if no date is written in it.

And the reason Abba Shaul requires that the wording “today” be written in the bill of divorce is not that he holds that a date is required in a bill of divorce. Rather, he holds that it must be evident from the bill of divorce that he intends to divorce her immediately when she receives it. If he did not write any date at all in the bill of divorce, it would not be evident from it that he is divorcing her immediately, and there would be concern that he might be divorcing her with this bill of divorce only after a year or two have passed from the day she received it. Therefore, Abba Shaul requires that at least the wording “today” be written in the bill of divorce, whose meaning is that he divorces her immediately upon her receiving it.

But here

here, in the loan document, in which it is necessary to specify in the document from whom he borrowed, perhaps an unspecified wording indicating from whom he borrowed cannot be relied upon, because

let us be concerned

there is concern

that it was lost!

Perhaps the document fell from another person, and this holder of the document found it, as Rav Huna said.

He said to him

Rabba said to Abaye:

With regard to the possibility that the document was lost

from the lender’s possession,

we are not concerned,

and therefore we rely even on the wording “from you” written in the document, meaning that the loan was from him.

And from where do you say

and what proof do you bring

that we are not concerned that it was lost?

As we learned

in our Mishna:

If there were two people in one city, one named Joseph son of Shimon and the other named Joseph son of Shimon—

they cannot produce a promissory note against one another,

because it is not clear from the document which of them is the lender and which is the borrower;

nor may another person produce a promissory note against them,

since each of them can claim that he was not the one who borrowed, but rather it was his fellow.

And it is precise to infer from here that

they, with regard to others,—

can

produce a promissory note, so that if one of them has a promissory note against another person, he may collect from him.

And seemingly this is difficult:

Why

can they produce a promissory note against others?

Let us be concerned that it was lost!

Perhaps the other Joseph son of Shimon was the lender, the document fell from his possession, and this Joseph son of Shimon found it.

Rather, is it not that one may conclude from this

from the Mishna that the person in possession of a document may collect the debt from another person named in the document, even though the document does not establish which Joseph son of Shimon is the lender, because

we are not concerned that it was lost;

the same applies if the document states, “I borrowed from you”: We are not concerned that the loan recorded in the document was from another person, that the document fell from his possession, and that this person found it.

And Abaye

what does he answer to this?

In his view, one must distinguish: In the Mishna, the entire concern is only

with regard to the loss by one person

that perhaps it fell from someone who has the same name as the person who now possesses the document, and this person possessing the document happened to find a document bearing a name identical to his own; regarding this,

we are not concerned. But with regard to a loss by many people,

such as a document stating, “I borrowed from you,” which could have fallen from any person and come into the possession of any person, in this case we are certainly

concerned,

and payment is not collected with this document.