Gittin 80a (פ.) — the Talmud in English

11. And if she was

a daughter of a Levite

—she is disqualified

from the tithe.

12. And if she was

a daughter of a priest

—she is disqualified

from teruma

, as is the law concerning a married woman who committed adultery, who is disqualified from teruma.

13.

And the heirs of this one and the heirs of that one do not inherit her ketuba

. Her sons from the two husbands do not inherit her ketuba.

The Gemara in Yevamot [91a] asks: This woman herself has no ketuba, as we learned above; how, then, can the sons inherit her ketuba?

And it explains that the reference is to the “ketuba of male sons,” a special enactment instituted by the Sages: If a woman dies during her husband’s lifetime and her husband inherits her, then, when her husband subsequently dies, her sons inherit the money of her ketuba and the dowry that she brought him [property of iron sheep]. That is, only her sons from him inherit from him the dowry that she brought him, whereas all his sons from other wives do not inherit it at all.

The Mishna therefore teaches that if this woman dies during the lifetime of both husbands, and afterward the husbands die, and she has sons from the first and from the second, they do not alone inherit her ketuba and dowry according to their special share under the law of the “ketuba of male sons.” Rather, everything is divided equally among all the sons of her husbands, including sons from another wife.

The Mishna needed to teach this, because one might have thought that only she was penalized, but not her sons. The Mishna therefore teaches that the penalty was imposed so as to strip her of her rights entirely, even the rights of her offspring.

14. And if both husbands died before they gave her a bill of divorce—

the brother of this one and the brother of that one perform halitza and may not perform yibbum.

The Mishna now presents another case in which she “must leave both this one and that one”:

He changed the husband’s name

in the bill of divorce,

and her name

[or her name], or

the name of his city

of the husband,

and the name

[or the name]

of her city

, the bill of divorce is invalid. And if she went and married on the basis of this bill of divorce, she must

leave both this one and that one, and all these ways apply to her

—all the stringencies stated above in our Mishna apply to her.

The Mishna presents a third case in which she “must leave both this one and that one”:

All

women who are forbidden as

forbidden relatives

to the yavam and do not fall before him for yibbum or halitza,

concerning whom they said

that also

their co-wives are permitted

to marry outside the levirate bond without yibbum or halitza. [This is as we learned at the beginning of tractate Yevamot: If one of the wives of the deceased brother is forbidden to the yavam as a forbidden relative—for example, she was his daughter—not only is she exempt from yibbum and halitza, but all the wives of the brother [who are “co-wives” of the woman forbidden to the yavam as a forbidden relative] are likewise exempt from yibbum and halitza.

If

these co-wives went and married

another man,

and

afterward

these women were found

—the forbidden relatives—to be

ailonit

[incapable by nature of giving birth], and it now becomes clear that the yavam’s forbidden relatives had not actually been married to the deceased brother, since their betrothal to the deceased brother was a mistaken transaction, and it now becomes clear that their co-wives are not considered the co-wives of a forbidden relative. For it is now retroactively clear that the ailonit women had never been married at all and that these women were not their “co-wives,” and they were not exempt from yibbum on their account.

It follows that the co-wife married a stranger while she was subject to the levirate bond—

she must

leave this one

, the husband whom she married, since she married him unlawfully [as a yevama subject to the levirate bond],

and that one

, the yavam, whom she may not marry through yibbum [but from whom she requires halitza].

And all these ways apply to her.

And a fourth case in which she must leave both this one and that one:

One who marries his yevama

, thereby exempting her co-wife, who is permitted to marry anyone,

and the co-wife went and married another man,

and afterward it was found that

this one

, whom he had taken in yibbum,

was an ailonit

, and her betrothal to the deceased brother had been a mistaken betrothal, so that she had never been the deceased’s wife, and the yavam’s intercourse with her did not exempt her co-wife. It follows that the co-wife married a stranger while she was subject to the levirate bond; therefore this co-wife

must leave both this one and that one, and all these ways apply to her.

And a fifth case:

The scribe wrote

a

bill of divorce for the man

so that he could divorce his wife with it, and

the receipt

[an acknowledgment of payment of the ketuba]

for the woman

, the one “receiving” her ketuba, which she receives at the time of the divorce.

And the scribe

made a mistake and switched them,

and gave

the

bill of divorce to the woman

instead of giving it to the husband so that he could give it to his wife,

and the receipt

he gave

to the man,

instead of giving it to the woman so that she could give it to her husband when he paid her ketuba.

And

as a result of the scribe’s mistake,

they gave them to one another

. The husband gave the woman the receipt instead of giving her the bill of divorce, while the woman gave her husband the bill of divorce instead of giving him the receipt. The woman then went and married another man, thinking that she had received a bill of divorce from her husband,

and after some time

, when the husband wishes to present his receipt as evidence that he paid the ketuba,

the bill of divorce emerges from the man’s possession, and the receipt from the woman’s possession.

It follows that this woman married another man while she was a married woman; therefore she

must leave both this one and that one, and all these ways apply to her.

Rabbi Elazar says:

Only

if immediately

, directly after they handed the documents to one another,

the bill of divorce emerged

from the husband’s possession and the mistake was revealed [and the Gemara will explain to what extent this is considered “immediately”],

the bill of divorce is not a bill of divorce

—we believe them that a mistake indeed occurred here.

But

if after some time the bill of divorce emerged

from her husband’s possession, and he claims that they had exchanged the documents,

it is a valid bill of divorce

, and she does not leave her second husband.

Because

the first husband has no power to do so

—his statement is not automatically accepted; that is, he is not believed

to forfeit the right of

the

second

husband, to whom she is now married.

Rather, we say that the first husband and the woman conspired together and exchanged the documents after the second marriage, so that she could return to her first husband.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: He wrote it in the name of an improper kingdom.

And we raise a question:

What

—which kingdom is called

“an improper kingdom”?

And we answer:

The kingdom of the Romans.

And we raise a question:

And why did he call it

“an improper kingdom”?

And we answer:

Because they have neither a script nor a language of their own

[a language], but rather adopted them from another nation.

Ulla said: Why did the Sages institute

that they should write

the kingdom in bills of divorce?

Because of the welfare of the kingdom.

The authorities might say: We are important in the eyes of the Jews, to the extent that they write the name of our kingdom in their documents; thereby peace will prevail between us and the kingdom.

And we raise a question:

And

if

because of “

the welfare of the kingdom

” we invalidate a bill of divorce written in the name of an improper kingdom, to the extent

that she must leave

her second husband, whom she married on the basis of such a bill of divorce, in which the name of a proper kingdom was not written,

and the child

born to her from him will be

a mamzer!?

And we answer:

Yes!

Our Mishna was taught without attribution, and an unattributed Mishna is Rabbi Meir’s.

And Rabbi Meir follows his own reasoning, as Rav Hamnuna said in the name of Ulla: Rabbi Meir would say: Whoever deviates from the formula that the Sages instituted for bills of divorce

, the bill of divorce is entirely invalid,

and the child

from the second husband is

a mamzer.

We learned in the Mishna: He wrote

in the name of the kingdom of Greece.

And it is necessary.

The Mishna must teach us all the cases in which the bill of divorce is invalid because the name of the kingdom was not written properly.

For if it had taught us

only the disqualification of one who writes in the name of

“an improper kingdom,”

I would have said that only in that case is it invalid,

because it reigns

—the kingdom of Rome currently exists, and perhaps the king of this country will be jealous of it and take offense at us for recognizing another kingdom that currently exists.

But

the kingdom of Media

and

the kingdom of Greece,

which have already passed from the world, the king does not take offense at our referring to them, because

what was, was

—what existed in the past has already existed and passed away. Therefore there is no concern that the kingdom of this country will be jealous of them. The Mishna must therefore teach us that here, too, the bill of divorce is invalid.

And if it had taught us

only

“the kingdom of Media and the kingdom of Greece,”

I would have said that only in this case is the bill of divorce invalid,

because they were kingdoms

—the name of a kingdom is nevertheless mentioned here, and therefore there is concern that the king might take offense at it.

But

how do we know that if he dated it according to the count from

the building of the Temple

, the king would not take offense? For the Temple no longer exists, and

what was

in the past

was

, and there is no “name” of a kingdom in this.

And if it had taught us

only

“the building of the Temple,”

I would have said that nevertheless the kingdom would take offense, because

they say

about us:

“They recall their glory!”

They boast about the Temple that they had.

But “

the destruction of the Temple

”

is a source of distress

for us; perhaps

the kingdom will not take offense at this, and the bill of divorce will be valid.

Therefore

it is necessary.

The Mishna needed to teach us all these cases, in all of which the bill of divorce is invalid.

We learned in the Mishna:

He was in the east and wrote in the west.

And we raise a question:

Who?

Who was in the east, while the scribe wrote that he was in the west?

If you say

that

the husband

was in the east, and the scribe changed his location and wrote that he was in the west, then

that is

“he changed his name and her name, and the name of his city and the name of her city,”

which appears later in the Mishna: If he changed the name of the husband’s city, the bill of divorce is invalid and all the stringencies apply to her. If so, why does the Mishna need to write this twice?

Rather, is it not

necessarily the case that the

scribe

was in the east when he wrote the bill of divorce, and wrote that the bill of divorce was written “in the west”?

And

as Rav said to his scribes

, the scribes in his city,

and so Rav Huna said to his scribes:

When you sit

, when you write a document while sitting

in Shili

[a place],

write

the place of the document, which is

in Shili, even though the instructions have been delivered to you

for writing it in Hini [a place].

And when you sit in Hini, write “in Hini,” even though the instructions have been delivered to you in Shili.

It follows that the place where a document was written must be written in the document; this is what the Mishna is discussing when it says that if one changed the place, the bill of divorce is invalid.