Study Eruvin folio 13B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
ונמלך ומצאו בן עירו ואמר: שמך כשמי ושם אשתך כשם אשתי — פסול לגרש בו!
but later reconsidered and did not divorce her, and a resident of his city found him and said: Your name is the same as my name, and your wife’s name is the same as my wife’s name, and we reside in the same town; give me the bill of divorce, and I will use it to divorce my wife, then this document is invalid to divorce with it? Apparently, a man may not divorce his wife with a bill of divorce written for another woman, and the same should apply to the scroll of a sota.
The Talmud rejects this argument: How can you compare the two cases? There, with regard to a bill of divorce, it is written: “And he should write for her” (Deuteronomy 24:1), and therefore we require writing it in her name, specifically for her; whereas here, with regard to a sota, it is written: “And he should perform with her all this ritual” (Numbers 5:30), and therefore we require performance in her name. In her case, the performance is erasure; however, writing of the scroll need not be performed specifically for her.
אמר רבי אחא בר חנינא: גלוי וידוע לפני מי שאמר והיה העולם שאין בדורו של רבי מאיר כמותו, ומפני מה לא קבעו הלכה כמותו? שלא יכלו חביריו לעמוד על סוף דעתו. שהוא אומר על טמא טהור ומראה לו פנים, על טהור טמא ומראה לו פנים.
On the topic of R' Meir and his Torah study, the Talmud cites an additional statement. R' Aḥa bar Ḥanina said: It is revealed and known before the One Who spoke and the world came into being that in the generation of R' Meir there was no one of the rabbis who is his equal. Why then didn’t the rabbis establish the halakha in accordance with his opinion? It is because his colleagues were unable to ascertain the profundity of his opinion. He was so brilliant that he could present a cogent argument for any position, even if it was not consistent with the prevalent halakha. As he would state with regard to a ritually impure item that it is pure, and display justification for that ruling, and likewise he would state with regard to a ritually pure item that it is impure, and display justification for that ruling. The rabbis were unable to distinguish between the statements that were halakha and those that were not.