Until It Reaches Her Hand

About This Talk

Chapter 6 is the law of agency in divorce, and it turns on which hand the get is in. A receiving agent appointed by the wife, a sh'liach kabbalah, completes the divorce the moment the get reaches his hand, as though it had reached hers; his appointment requires two witnesses and two more when the get is handed over, the same pair may serve for both, and the witnesses matter only if the get is later lost or torn, since the get in the agent's possession is itself the proof. A husband may not appoint a receiving agent for his wife, though he may appoint a delivery agent, a sh'liach holachah, and she may appoint an agent to fetch it, a sh'liach hava'ah, neither of whom needs witnesses; with those two the divorce is not effective until the get reaches her own hand, and the unqualified word agent always means one of them. Anyone may serve except five, a gentile, a servant, a deaf mute, a mentally incompetent person and a minor, and if one of them carries or receives the get the divorce does not take effect; women, relatives and men disqualified by Rabbinic violations may serve, while men disqualified by Scriptural violations render the divorce unacceptable where the signatures are verified and void where we must rely on their word alone. Capacity must hold at both ends of the errand, so an agent who was a minor, deaf mute, incompetent, gentile or servant when he took the get voids the divorce even if he had gained majority, hearing, competence, conversion or freedom before delivering it, while an agent competent at the start and the finish is acceptable even if he lost his competence in between. Take my get and keep it for me makes a man a receiving agent; a wife may send her receiving agent to collect from the husband's own agent; a girl below majority may not appoint one, since the appointment needs witnesses and witnesses cannot testify about a minor, even though a get placed in her courtyard would work. The husband may downgrade her receiving agent into his own delivery agent by saying bring it to her, while receive it for her, here it is, or acquire it for her leave her agency intact. If the agent tells the husband he is a receiving agent when he was appointed to fetch, he has revoked his own agency and the divorce fails even when the get reaches her; if he tells the husband he is only fetching when he was appointed to receive, the divorce is effective on delivery, because he took on more trouble rather than less. A wife who refuses the get and tells the agent in front of witnesses to hold it for her leaves the divorce in doubt until it reaches her possession, after which it is binding. The agent must give the get before two witnesses who read it first, exactly as the husband would, and a get given in private should be taken back and given again before two, though if the agent dies and the signatures are verified the divorce stands. The husband may nullify the get before it reaches her, to the agent, to her, through a second agent, or before at least two other people, but once it reaches 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 intervening time hunting for witnesses to nullify it. Among ten commissioned writers or ten agents, nullifying before any one of them voids it. An objection lodged in advance, declaring void any get he will write, or will have written in a named court, or within the next twenty years, or even declaring void in advance his own future retraction of the objection, destroys the later get, and the only repair is to have him affirm before witnesses that every such statement is itself nullified, answer yes, and then be kept in the room until the get is delivered. Nullifying the agency is not nullifying the document, so he may still use that get later, while nullifying the get itself in his own possession makes it a shard forever. The wording decides everything: it is nullified, I cannot abide by it, may it not release her, may it be like a shard, all nullify, while this get is not a get, it is unacceptable, it does not divorce her, do nothing at all, because they are statements of fact and in this case false ones; the single word batel is ambiguous between past and future and leaves the divorce in doubt. Blessing God for good news when the agent returns undelivered nullifies nothing either; he must say do not give it to her. A man who nullifies before two strangers or lodges an objection receives stripes for rebelliousness, because he makes illegitimate children possible, and we do not suspect any delivered get of having been nullified, though if it emerges that it was, she must leave her second husband and the children are illegitimate. An agent carrying a get from a sick or elderly man, or from a besieged city, a ship in distress or a man taken out for capital judgment, delivers it on the presumption that the sender lives, while a man in his death throes, a conquered city, a ship lost at sea, an execution by a gentile court, a beast of prey, a river or an avalanche put the divorce in doubt and the get should not be delivered at all. Until it reaches her hand or her receiving agent's, she is still his wife, and he owes her support and every stipulation of her marriage contract.