One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
גירושין
Gerushin 7
Sefer Nashim · Divorce · The get that has to travel: when an agent must declare that it was written and signed before him, who may make that declaration, and how the agency survives illness, distance and death.
2
Witnesses before whom the declaration is made
5
Categories of women barred from carrying a get in the land
3
Men required where the agent cannot serve as a witness
100
Agents the chain may run through and still hold
Part 1Inside the land, and what a forgery costs
- Inside Eretz Yisrael the agent says nothing. He may hand over a get he never saw written, whose signatories he cannot name, in the presence of witnesses, and she is divorced and may remarry, because courts sat frequently there and a signature could be verified if needed. (7:1)
- A husband's protest forces verification, and failure is ruinous. If he claims the get is a forgery the signatures must be verified; verified, his protest is ignored entirely, since signed witnesses count as having testified in court. Unverifiable, she must leave her second husband and the children of that marriage are illegitimate, and a lost get leaves the divorce permanently in doubt. (7:2, 7:7)
- Five categories of women may not carry a get inside the land. A mother-in-law, the daughter of a mother-in-law, another woman married to the same man even after she has remarried, her yevamah even where that woman is her own sister, and her husband's daughter from another marriage. The fear is a forgery that leaves her forbidden to both husbands at once. All other women are acceptable. (7:3)
- The map follows verifiability, not borders. The rivers of Eretz Yisrael and the Mediterranean islands inside its boundaries take the rules of the land and those outside take the diaspora's; Babylonia counts as the land for gittin. A get written in the land and signed abroad needs the declaration, while one written abroad and signed in the land does not. (7:10-11)
RememberThe document is trusted wherever checking it would be possible, not wherever it has actually been checked.
Part 2The declaration, and what it is worth
- One sentence replaces two verifying witnesses. An agent who was present at the composition and the signing says before two witnesses that it was written and signed before him, and the divorce takes effect though the witnesses are unknown to us and even though their names resemble gentile names. Thereafter the husband's protest is of no consequence. (7:5-6)
- The Sages state their reason outright. The declaration was required in the diaspora so that the woman would not have to verify signatures if her husband protests, because witnesses are often simply not available for a document that has traveled. An agent in Eretz Yisrael who makes the declaration though not obliged to likewise silences the protest. (7:7-8)
- Half a declaration is worth nothing, and the opening line is worth everything. Written but not signed, or signed but not written, and the signatures must be verified. Yet if only part of the get was written before him it suffices, provided it was the opening portion, even one line, even where he merely heard the scribe's pen, and even where the scribe left for the marketplace and returned to finish. (7:12-13)
- Real proof defeats the declaration. Where the husband brings two witnesses who testify that the get is a forgery, it is void. The word of one man was accepted only against a protest unaccompanied by substantial proof. (7:9)
RememberEven the women presumed to hate one another may carry a get in the diaspora, because once they must make the declaration a forgery would accomplish nothing.
Part 3The chain, and who is able to speak
- Illness passes the agency on, up to a hundred times. An agent who falls sick or is stopped by forces beyond his control may send the get with another, and so on without limit; the last gives it before two witnesses and the divorce is effective even if the first agent has died. Inside the land no witnesses are needed for that appointment, and an agent need not be present in court to be appointed. (7:4, 7:22)
- Abroad the handoff goes through a court. The hindered agent declares before a court that it was written and signed before him, and the court oversees the appointment; each later agent says only that he is an agent of the court. Where the signatures were verified in the ordinary way, agents may pass the get privately, even a hundred of them. (7:20-21)
- A blind man cannot bring a get from abroad. He is unable to say that it was written and signed before him. If it was written and signed while he could see and he lost his sight afterward, he declares before three men, as a woman bringing a get must, because the provision of two applies only to an agent fit to serve as a witness, who then joins the other two as the third. An agent who lost the power of speech first leaves the signatures to be verified. (7:18-19)
- Two agents need no declaration, and a defective handover is repaired. Two agents bringing a get from abroad may deliver it without declaring anything, and the husband's protest is of no consequence, since the agents he appointed serve as the witnesses. An agent who handed a get over privately, or without the declaration, takes it back and gives it again before two witnesses; failing that the divorce is unacceptable until the signatures are verified. (7:14, 7:17)
RememberA husband may even send his wife with her own get as his agent to a court, and she then makes the declaration herself and it is accepted.