Introduction There are two parts of any document, called in Hebrew the “tofes” and the “toref”. The “tofes” is the general formula which is used in all of these types of documents. The “toref” is the place where the names of the parties involved, the amount of money involved and the time and place where the matter referred to in the document was performed. In the previous mishnah we learned that a divorce document must be written expressly for the woman to whom it will be given. Our mishnah deals with the validity of divorce documents whose “tofes” was written without this specific intention.
[A scribe] who writes out formulas of bills of divorce must leave blank spaces for the name of the man and the name of the woman and the date. [A scribe who writes] loan documents must leave blank spaces for the name of the lender, the name of the borrower, the amount of money and the date. [A scribe who writes] sale documents must leave blank spaces for the name of the seller, the name of the purchaser, the amount of money, the property and the date; [These spaces must be left blank] because of the “takkanah” (. According to the first opinion in this mishnah, a scribe may write out document formulas before he knows who or under what circumstances the documents will be used, but he must leave the “toref”, the details, blank. The mishnah lists three types of documents: divorce, loan and sale. The reason that these spaces must be left blank in a divorce document is that if they are not, the get will not have been written expressly for the woman to whom it will be given. This is according to the halakhah which we learned in yesterday’s mishnah. The loan and sales documents do not have such a requirement. Nevertheless, according to this opinion they too cannot be fully filled out beforehand because if the rabbis allow this, scribes will do the same with divorce documents. This is called a “fence around the Torah”, a stringency meant to prevent people from doing that which is truly problematic. The rabbis forbade filling out all documents lest divorce documents were also fully written out. The mishnah cryptically explains that these must be left blank “because of the takkanah”, or “enactment”, without explain what the “takkanah” is. There are several explanations for this, each of which is not without its problems. One explanation is that the “takkanah” was that scribes may write the formulas ahead of time so that when people request a certain document that document would be readily available. The problem with this explanation is that the mishnah seems to state that the “takkanah” was that the spaces should be left blank and not that scribes might write the formulas. A second explanation is that the “takkanah” was that they shouldn’t write out the entire document, so that people would not be rash in selling their property or borrowing money. This is a decent explanation for the sales and lending documents, but does not explain well the issue of the divorce documents, which are invalid if fully written out even without a special “takkanah.”
Rabbi Judah disqualifies all of them. Rabbi Judah disqualifies all of these documents. According to the Talmud, he forbids writing the formula (“tofes”) of the get, lest the scribe come to also write the specifics, which according to the midrash must be written for the specific woman. He also disqualifies loan and sales documents whose formulas were pre-written lest a scribe pre-write a divorce document. We can see that he is doubly strict, creating many “fences” around what is actually prohibited (pre-writing the details of the get).
Rabbi Elazar validates all of them valid except divorce documents, as it says, “He writes for her” (Deut 24:1), expressly for her. Rabbi Elazar partially agrees with Rabbi Judah. He agrees that pre-writing the divorce formula is forbidden, and this he derives from the midrash. According to his interpretation, the entire get must be written with a specific woman in mind, and not just the “tofes”. However, he agrees with the opinion in section one that the formulas of other documents may be written ahead of time. He is not concerned that if the halakhah allows the scribe to pre-write these documents, the scribe might pre-write divorce documents as well.