One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
גירושין
Gerushin 6
Sefer Nashim · Divorce · The law of agency in a divorce: which agent's hand ends the marriage, who is fit to carry or receive the get, how a husband may still retract, and the presumptions an agent delivers on.
3
Kinds of agent, only one of whom ends it on receipt
5
Individuals who may never serve as agent
2
Witnesses to appoint a receiving agent, and two at handover
20
Years an advance objection can reach forward
Ch 6Movement one: three agents and one asymmetry
- The wife's receiving agent ends the marriage the moment he takes it. A sh'liach kabbalah is appointed by the woman, and when the get reaches his hand the divorce is complete as though it had reached hers. His appointment needs two witnesses, and two must be present when the get is handed over, and the same pair may serve for both. Witnesses matter only if the get is later lost or torn, since the get in his possession is itself the proof, though a priori it should still be transferred before witnesses. (6:1-2)
- He may appoint a carrier, never a receiver. A husband may not appoint an agent to receive a get for his wife; he may appoint a delivery agent, a sh'liach holachah. The wife may also appoint an agent to fetch it, a sh'liach hava'ah. Neither of those two needs witnesses, and with either of them the woman is not divorced until the get reaches her own hand. The unqualified word agent always means one of those two. (6:3-5)
- Five are disqualified, and relatives are not among them. Anyone may serve as any of the three agents except a gentile, a servant, a deaf mute, a mentally incompetent person and a minor; if one of them brings or receives the get the divorce is not effective. Women, relatives and men disqualified from testimony for Rabbinic violations are all acceptable. A man disqualified by a Scriptural violation renders the divorce unacceptable where the signatures are verified, and void where his word alone is what we rely on. (6:6-7)
- Capacity must hold at both ends of the errand. An agent who was a minor, deaf mute, incompetent, gentile or servant when the get was given to him voids the divorce even if he gained majority, speech, competence, conversion or freedom before delivering it, since he was unfit when the agency was conveyed. An agent sound of mind at the start and at the finish is valid even if he lost his competence in between. A girl below majority may not appoint a receiving agent at all, since that appointment requires witnesses and witnesses cannot testify about a minor, even though a get placed in her courtyard would work. (6:8-9)
RememberThe husband owns the decision and never owns the ending; only her hand, or a hand she named, can finish it.
Ch 6Movement two: retraction, and the wording that decides it
- Until it lands, he can stop it; after it lands, he cannot. The husband may nullify the get before it arrives, speaking to the agent, to her, through a second agent, or before at least two other people. Once it has reached her hand, her receiving agent or her courtyard, he can no longer touch it, even an instant after appointing the agent, and even if he spent the whole interval searching for witnesses to nullify it. Among ten commissioned writers, or ten agents, a nullification before any single one of them voids it. (6:16-18)
- These wordings nullify. It is nullified. I cannot abide by it. May this get not be effective. May it not permit her. May it not release her. May it not send her forth. May it not divorce her. May it be a shard. May it be like a shard. Behold it is like a shard. Any of these or a similar expression negates the get. The single word batel is ambiguous between past and future tense, as in the verse he turned away and was gone, so a divorce effected after it is in doubt. (6:22, 6:24)
- An objection lodged in advance destroys a get not yet written. Telling two witnesses that the get he intends to write is nullified voids the later document, as does voiding in advance any get written by a named scribe, in a named court, or within the next twenty years, or even voiding in advance his own future retraction of the objection. The repair: before the writing, the witnesses have him affirm that all such statements of his are themselves nullified, he answers yes, and he is not let out of the room until the get is delivered. (6:19-20)
- Nullifying the agency is not nullifying the document. A man who recalls his agent may still use that same get to divorce her whenever he likes, since he canceled only the errand. But if the get is in his own possession and he declares the document itself nullified, it is a shard forever and can never effect a divorce. One who nullifies before two strangers, or lodges an advance objection, receives stripes for rebelliousness, because he makes illegitimate children possible; and we never suspect a delivered get of having been nullified, so she may remarry on it. (6:21, 6:26-27)
RememberTwo lists mean the same thing in ordinary speech and only one of them does anything, because the law is listening for words that constitute rather than words that report.
Ch 6Movement three: handover, presumptions, and what he still owes
- The agent stands in the husband's place, so the handover follows the same rules. He must give the get to her before two witnesses, who read it first and then watch it transferred. If he hands it over without their reading it and she throws it into the ocean, the divorce is in doubt. An agent who transgresses and gives it in private must take it back and give it again before two, though if he dies first and the signatures are verified the divorce stands. (6:14-15)
- Her words at the doorstep can change his agent into hers. Take my get and keep it for me in your possession makes a man a receiving agent. She may send her receiving agent to collect from the husband's own agent. The husband may downgrade her receiving agent into his own carrier by saying bring it to her, while receive it for her, here it is, or acquire it for her leave her agency standing. If she refuses the get and tells the agent before witnesses to hold it for her, the divorce is in doubt until it reaches her possession. (6:9-10, 6:13)
- Doubtful life, doubtful divorce. An agent delivers on the presumption that the sender lives, and so may deliver from a man who was sick or elderly, from a besieged city, from a ship in distress, or from a man taken out for capital judgment. A man in his death throes leaves the divorce in doubt, since most in that state die and a get after death is nothing. A conquered city with a breached wall, a ship lost at sea, an execution by a gentile court, a beast of prey, a river or an avalanche: the get should not be delivered, delivery leaves her status in doubt, and a known prior death voids it. (6:28-29)
- Until it arrives, she is his wife and he owes her everything. A husband who has sent a get remains obligated in her support and in every stipulation of the marriage contract until the get reaches her or reaches the receiving agent she appointed. The decision, the scribe, the witnesses and the road change nothing about the obligation. Where a mistake does emerge after she has remarried, she must leave the second husband and the children of that marriage are illegitimate. (6:30, 6:27)
RememberHe has decided, paid the scribe and sent the document, and he owes her dinner tonight, because nothing has arrived yet.