cellio | daf bit: Bava Batra 167

The mishna teaches: a letter of divorce may be written for a husband though his wife is not present, and a receipt (for same) may be written for a wife though her husband is not present, so long as they are known. The g'mara clarifies that the document contains the name of the person in question -- a bill of divorce contains the name of the husband (who is issuing it), not the wife, and his name must be known to the scribe and witnesses. The rabbis then ask how such a document could be valid; if there are two Yosef ben Shimons in town and the wife is not present, there is a risk that the document could be delivered to the wrong man's wife! R. Aha ben Huna resolved this in the name of Rav: in a town with two men of the same name, neither one may divorce his wife except in the presence of the other. (167a-b)

(The g'mara does not here discuss the possibility of the scribe disambiguating in the the document, e.g. the Yosef ben Shimon who is taller, or who is a baker, or whatever. Perhaps this means that the two men must go together to the divorcing one's wife? But the g'mara elsewhere allows agents to deliver the document (presumably the source of the potential confusion on names), so that's probably not it. What is gained by having both Yosefs show up while scribes write a divorce document for one of them?)

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I assume that having both men there means that everyone will be careful to distinguish them, seeing them right there together, and there will be ways of confirming that the correct wife gets the document. Perhaps now making sure that if there were two people with the exact same name in town, there were photos of all of them would nowadays be sufficient?

Good point -- maybe it's enough to bring them together to remind everyone to be careful.

Today maybe they'd use some unique ID like SSN?

I think unique IDs would likely work also.
Of course, IANAR.

I see the Rabbi never had to deal with Darryl, brother of Darryl, brother of Darryl, son of Darryl....

(runs away while you carve stale matzos into shuriken to throw after him)

*laugh*

(wait, you can't just use stale matzos as they are as shuriken? ;-)

Rabbi Ezra ben Ichi no ichi teaches: When pursuing the enemy, hurl not the uncarved stale matzo, for it shall not bite deeply. The wise and prudent Ninja plans ahead, and carves his unused matzo into a star of four long and sharp points, so that when the goyim make bad jokes, they shall not make them again.

?שׁוּריקן
Sure you can what?
Sure I can do this!

That would be Ezra son of Isaac ("Nō Isaac"), of the famous Japanese theatrical rabbinical dynasty. My grandmother's... grandmother, I think, was known as (in my grandmother's words) "Itchy the Tepper's tokhter", i.e., Isaac the Tinker's daughter.

Edited 2010-02-04 21:23 (UTC)

Oh my. What have I unleashed? :-)

Nothin' much, just a couple of punsters... Nō worry.

I see the Rabbi never had to deal with Darryl, brother of Darryl, brother of Darryl, son of Darryl....

I wouldn't be too surprised to find a rabbinic prohibition on such naming practices...

I have a pair of first cousins -- my father's younger sister's sons -- whom I call [stage hillbilly accent] m' country cuzins from TennessEEEE [/accent], because they grew up in that Yankee outpost Oak Ridge. We're all within three years of age, and as it happens I resemble each of them facially about as much as they resemble each other. What's more, the younger one has the same name as me.

So I've always wished that we could enter a room together, with my older cousin leading and announcing "Hi, I'm ~~~~. This is my brother ^^^^ and this is my other brother ^^^^!"

"Bring your brother and your brother's brother." A stale matzo (after Passover) to the first one to identify the source.

in a town with two men of the same name, neither one may divorce his wife except in the presence of the other

Meaning if you are named John Smith, you really don't want to be living in New York if you want a divorce.

"Honey, let's move out to the country."
"Why?"
"Oh, no particular reason..."

*laugh*

They have to live out in the country for at least 30 days, according to Rav. (This is for the man's name to become "known".) So a weekend away won't do it; they have to move, as you inferred. (Or if you didn't infer, at least you implied. :-) )

That's more vacation time than I get, but I suppose one could rent an apartment during a 31-day month...

So what if you live out in the middle of nowhere, like the Northwest Territories of Canada, where you might not see anyone for a month? It is probably a moot question since you also would not have a convenient rabbi, but it couldn't be assumed that you were "known". (it is probably even more of a moot question since (a) your name would be sufficiently unique and (b) your spouse would have left you long ago)

I feel confident that I remember from somewhere else (likely Gittin) that one can disambiguate with grandfathers: Yossi ben Shimon ben Yaakov. I thought professions too, although they could change (he was a baker & now he is a butcher), and relative height seems a bad idea (well, he was the tall one, but then Yossi the basketball player moved to town...)

I had been assuming that these documents would be dated, so there would be an implicit "as of the date of this document" for any disambiguation. But I don't know -- are they? There have to be witnesses, but what about dates?

Using grandfathers makes sense.

A date is required rabbinically. The explicit reason is to prevent a somewhat out-there eventuality: A man will be married to his sister's daughter (perfectly fine). The wife/neice will then adulter while married. The wife's mother will urge her brother to give a get without a date. Then the claim that she was married while adultering cannot be proven (perhaps the get preceded the adultery), so she cannot be executed, when really she should be.

I think the odd relationship is included because a husband will listen to his mother-in-law only if she is also his sister.

daf bit: Bava Batra 167

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