Study Gittin folio 3B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
חתימה לשמה? אי רבי מאיר – חתימה בעי, כתיבה לא בעי! דתנן: אין כותבין במחובר לקרקע. כתבו על המחובר לקרקע, תלשו, חתמו ונתנו לה – כשר!
that the signing must be performed for her sake? If it is in accordance with the opinion of R' Meir, he requires signing for her sake; however, he does not require that the writing must be for her sake. As we learned in a Mishnah (21b): One may not write a bill of divorce on anything that is attached to the ground, e.g., a leaf attached to a tree. However, if he wrote it on something that is attached to the ground, and then he detached it, signed it, and gave it to her, it is valid. This indicates that the essential stage of writing a bill of divorce is when it is signed by witnesses. The Talmud says that this is R' Meir’s opinion, as an unattributed ruling in the Mishnah typically follows the opinion of R' Meir.
אי רבי אלעזר – כתיבה בעי, חתימה לא בעי! וכי תימא לעולם רבי אלעזר היא, וכי לא בעי רבי אלעזר חתימה לשמה – מדאורייתא, מדרבנן – בעי; והא שלשה גיטין פסולין דרבנן, ולא בעי רבי אלעזר חתימה לשמה!
If it is in accordance with the opinion of R' Elazar, who disagrees with R' Meir and requires that the writing must be for her sake, he does not require that the signing must be for her sake. And if you would say that actually the Mishnah is in accordance with the opinion of R' Elazar, and when R' Elazar does not require signing for her sake, he means by Torah law, whereas by rabbinic law he requires that bills of divorce must be signed for her sake; but that is untenable, as the rabbis listed 3 bills of divorce that are valid by Torah law but are invalid by rabbinic law, and when he disputes that ruling R' Elazar does not require that the signing must be for her sake.