Talmud Bavli
Talmud Bavli

Musar for Gittin 39:16

איתיביה לא היה כתבו שוקע אלא בולט כדינרי זהב ואי סלקא דעתך מיחרץ חריץ

it is still valid.' The text above [stated:] 'The instruction was sent from Eretz Israel: If the Get is written on something from which it is forbidden to derive a benefit, it is still valid'. R. Ashi said: We have also learned [to the same effect]: [A Get may be written] ON AN OLIVE LEAF.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Which is also worthless. ');"><sup>15</sup></span> But perhaps an olive leaf is different because [although worth nothing in itself] it may yet be combined [with other things to enhance the value of the whole]?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' E.g., a pile of olive leaves may be bought for lying on or for feeding cattle. The Mishnah affords then no support to the message from Eretz Israel. ');"><sup>16</sup></span> It has been taught: Rabbi said that if the Get is written on something from which it is forbidden to derive a benefit, it is still valid. Levi went about stating this ruling in the name of Rabbi, and it was not approved.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'it was not praised'. ');"><sup>17</sup></span> He then stated it in the name of the main body of the Rabbis<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'of many'. ');"><sup>18</sup></span> and it was approved. From this we may conclude that the law follows his ruling.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Because when it was not approved at first, Levi took the trouble to obtain additional authority. ');"><sup>19</sup></span> Our Rabbis have taught: '[The Scripture says] And he shall write ["the writ of divorce"], which implies that he is not to grave it.' From this we would conclude that graving is not counted as writing. This, however, seems to be in contradiction with the following: A slave who produces a deed engraved on a tablet or a board is legally emancipated, but not if the writing is woven into a woman's headband or a piece of embroidery?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' So Rashi. Jastrow, however, (s.v. [H]) translates, 'a slave does not go free in virtue of wearing a freedman's cap or of a vindicto (manumission by declaration before a court).' ');"><sup>20</sup></span> — Said 'Ulla in the name of R. Eleazar: There is no contradiction. Graving is invalid if the letters are in relief,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'if he carved out the interior (of the plate)'. ');"><sup>21</sup></span> but valid if they are hollowed out.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'if he carved out the thighs (of the letters)'. ');"><sup>22</sup></span> [You say that if the letters are] in relief it is not [valid]. Does not this contradict the following? 'The writing [on the High priest's plate]<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' V. Ex. XXVIII, 36. ');"><sup>23</sup></span> was not sunk in but projected like that on gold coins.' And is not [the inscription on] gold <i>denarii</i> in relief? — [It was] like [the inscription on] gold <i>denarii</i> and yet not like it. [It was] like it in the fact that it projected, but it was unlike it because there [in gold <i>denarii</i> the metal is hollowed] round the letters,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'the interior'. ');"><sup>24</sup></span> but here [in the High Priest's plate] the letters themselves<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'the thighs'. They were pressed forward from the back and so projected in front. ');"><sup>25</sup></span> were hollowed out. Rabina inquired of R. Ashi: Does a stamp scrape out or does it force together?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' If it scrapes out the metal round the letters, the use of it is not writing; but it is if the letters are formed by compression. ');"><sup>26</sup></span> — He replied: It makes a depression. [Rabina] thereupon raised the following objection: [It has been taught] 'The writing [on the High Priest's plate] was not sunk in but was in relief, like the [inscription on] gold denarii'. Now if a stamp makes a depression round the letters,

Shenei Luchot HaBerit

Remember that union is not only physical, i.e. not only the flesh becomes one, but also the souls unite in the Higher Regions. When that occurs one's wife has truly become "בת זוגו." On the rare occasions when such union fails to be achieved the husband terminates the marriage through a decree of divorce, and the wife becomes someone else's marriage partner, for she was obviously not destined to complement her first husband's spiritual needs. It is customary to write the גט, divorce document, in 12 lines in order to make the dissolution of this marriage similar to the way it was contracted, i.e. that union was to be achieved within 12 months. Our sages, in lamenting the sadness of such an occasion, did not refer to the numerically "first" marriage when they said that when one divorces one's "first" wife the altar sheds tears. [This comment applies to someone who has found his בת זוג, something called זווג ראשון, the match approved by heaven, see chapter 45 in Rabbi Moshe Alshich's commentary on Psalms at length on this subject. This editor's translation page 323. Ed.] The marriage in question is not one in which people are involved whose souls are already experiencing the second or third re-incarnation. The terrestrial altar which corresponds to the Celestial Altar (known to Kabbalists as אשת חיל), is truly saddened. The Rekanati comments on the reason why the Torah describes the divorce document as ספר כריתות, literally a "book of separation." The union of the souls of the pair in question took place in Heaven long before their respective bodies joined on earth. Therefore, when separation between the pair occurs a "book of separation" is needed in order to effect this total separation. This so-called "book" is to be understood as an allusion to the emanations "ספירות." What had been joined in Heaven has been torn asunder by a husband who was too insensitive to his good fortune of having found his true בת זוג on earth. The Torah instructs the husband (24,1) that if he divorces his wife וכתב לה ספר כריתות, that the divorce decree in question must be especially written לשמה, "for her name," i.e. for this particular couple. It must contain both the husband's and the wife's name as well as the city in which they reside to show that the separation is only between them and does not affect the דו-פרציפות in the emanations of חכמה and בינה. Thus far the Rekanati.
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