Bava Metzia 18a (יח.) — the Talmud in English

Rather, if you say that he did not write it for her,

what does she collect in full?

For she has only

one hundred and two hundred zuz,

since he did not write her the additional amount of the ketuba!

But rather, from what Rav Hiyya bar Ami taught: “If one’s betrothed wife

dies,

he does not

become

an onen

[he does not assume the status of an onen ] for her.

And

if he is a

kohen, he does not become impure for her.

For the obligation to become impure for one’s wife is derived from the verse: “For his relative,” where “his relative” refers to his wife. This applies specifically to a married wife, who is his close flesh-and-blood relative; but a betrothed woman, with whom he has not yet attained physical intimacy, is not considered his “relative.”

And similarly,

if she, the betrothed woman, loses her betrothed,

she does not become an onен and does not become impure for him .

If she dies,

she

is not his heir.

For the inheritance of a wife is derived from the verse: “His closest relative to him from his family, and he shall inherit her”; and a betrothed woman is not considered his “relative.”

If he dies,

she collects her ketuba.

This proves from here that a betrothed woman has a ketuba!

This proof, too, can be rejected in the same manner:

perhaps

it is referring to a case in which he

wrote her

a ketuba and undertook the obligation on his own.

And if you would say:

if it is referring to a case in which he

wrote her a ketuba—

what is it coming to teach us?

What is the novelty in the fact that she collects her ketuba?

It can be said that indeed there is no novelty in the fact that she collects her ketuba. But

“If she dies, he is not her heir” was necessary for the tanna to teach us

And therefore the tanna taught that if he dies, she collects her ketuba, to teach us that although their relationship had become so close that he wrote her a ketuba on his own initiative, nevertheless he is not her heir .

Rather, Abaye, who said earlier: “What I said is not correct,” because he found it difficult

from the body of the Mishna itself—

retracted his position.

For if it enters your mind

For if it enters your mind

that the reason is not that one may not raise a claim contrary to an act of the court, but rather that

we are dealing with a place where they do not write a ketuba, and the get is its ketuba—does a get state ‘one hundred and two hundred’

so that it can be said that it substantiates the debt?

And if you would say: Since the Sages instituted that she may collect by means of it—

it is considered as though it were written in it,

let him raise the claim and say: “I paid it”!

And if you would say: We tell him, “If you paid it,”

“You should have torn it,” and he said to us: “She did not let me”

[she did not allow me to tear it], because

she said: “I need to marry on the basis of it”

[I need the get in order to marry by virtue of it].

And if you would say

that

we tell him: “You should have torn it, and write alongside it

[and the court should write on the get]:

‘We tore this get, not because it was an invalid get, but so that she should not collect with it another time’”

[We tore this get, not because it was an invalid get, but so that she should not collect with it a second time],

it is impossible to say this, because

does everyone who collects—

collect in court

[Does everyone who pays a debt pay it in the presence of a court?]. He can claim, “I paid her in a place where there was no court to write this for me”!

Mishna:

If

a person finds

a

woman’s divorce documents and manumission documents

[or documents freeing slaves], or if he finds

a dayyetaqi

[the will of one who is deathly ill], or documents of

gifts and receipts

[or if he finds receipts, evidentiary documents that the borrower paid his debt]—

he may not return them.

Because

I say:

perhaps they

had been written, and

in the end he

changed his mind about them

and wrote them

not to give them.

Therefore, it is impossible to obligate him on the basis of the document .

Gemara:

It follows that

the reason

not to return the documents is that

we

are concerned that perhaps he

changed his mind

about them

and did not give them. However,

if he

said,

when writing them,

“Give them”

to their owners, in which case it is certain that their writer gave them to their owners—

they give

them to whoever claims them,

even

if the documents were found

by

someone else

after a long time

since they were lost. And we are not concerned that perhaps another person wrote the document, whose name was identical to his , and it fell from him.

And we raise a contradiction:

An agent of the husband

who brings a get

to the woman

and it was lost from him, if

he

found

it

immediately,

that is, before enough time had passed for a caravan to pass through and remain there—

it is valid.

For then there is no concern that the get that was found fell from another person who was in the caravan that passed through there.

If not,

if it was not found immediately—

it is invalid,

because we are concerned that this get is not the one that was lost, but belongs to another person whose name is identical to that of the person named in the lost get. This is contrary to the inference we drew from our Mishna, that even if it was found after a long time, it is valid!

Rabba said: It is not difficult. Here,

the case in which we learned that if it was found after a long time it is invalid is one in which it was found

in a place where caravans are common.

For then we are concerned that it may have fallen from someone who was in a caravan that passed through there.

But

here,

in our Mishna, it is referring to

a place where caravans are not common.

Therefore, he returns the documents even if they were found after a long time .

The Gemara adds to Rabba’s statement:

Even in a place where caravans are common,

where Rabba said that we are concerned that it may have fallen from another person,

that

applies specifically to a case in which

two people named Yosef ben Shimon were established as living in one city

[it was known to us that in the city in which the get was written there were two men whose names were identical, for example, both were named “Yosef ben Shimon”]. For then we are concerned that the get may have fallen from another person whose name was identical to his , and even the names of their wives were identical.

But if two such people were not established as living there, we are not concerned that there is another person there with the same name, nor are we concerned that there is another city with the same name as this city, and that there is a person there with the same name, because that is a remote concern .

For if you do not say this, it is difficult

to reconcile the words of

Rabba

with

the words of

Rabba

elsewhere.

There was a certain get that was found in the court of Rav Huna

[which was found in the court of Rav Huna],

in which it was written

that it had been written

in the city of Shavrei, situated on the Rakhis River

[in the city of Shavrei, which sits on the Rakhis River].