Gittin 24B

יתר מיכן ⁠– היו לו שתי נשים ושמותיהן שוות, כתב לגרש את הגדולה ⁠– לא יגרש בו את הקטנה.

Moreover, if one had two wives and their names were identical, and he wrote a bill of divorce to divorce the older one and then reconsidered, he may not divorce the younger one with it.

יתר מיכן ⁠– אמר ללבלר: ״כתוב, לאיזו שארצה אגרש״⁠ – פסול לגרש בו.

Moreover, if he said to the scribe: Write a bill of divorce for whichever one of them that I will want and I will divorce her with it, this bill of divorce is unfit for him to divorce either wife with it.

גמ׳ כתב לגרש את אשתו ונמלך וכו׳: ואלא רישא במאי?

Talmud: The second clause of the Mishnah considers a case where one wrote a bill of divorce with which to divorce his wife but later reconsidered, and a resident of his town with identical personal details found him and desired to use the bill of divorce. The Talmud asks: But then with what case is the first clause of the Mishnah, where a man discovers that a scribe had written a bill of divorce with identical personal details to his own, dealing; isn’t that also a case of a bill of divorce that was written for someone else? Why did the tanna cite two seemingly identical cases?

אמר רב פפא: בסופרין העשויין להתלמד עסקינן. אמר רב אשי: דיקא נמי, דקתני ״סופרין מקרין״, ולא קתני ״סופרין קוראין״; שמע מינה.

Rav Pappa said: We are dealing with scribes who are practicing writing; the bill of divorce in the first case was written as an exercise and not because someone requested that it be written. Rav Ashi said: The language of the Mishnah is also precise, as it teaches: Scribes dictating, i.e., to their students, and it does not teach: Scribes reading the names on their own. The Talmud concludes: Indeed, learn from this phrasing that this is the correct understanding of the Mishnah.