Yesterday, we learned that Rav Huna said:
One who is hanged and sold it, his sale is valid.
Rav Huna seems to be saying that if one is tortured or otherwise coerced into selling their property, the sale is valid. In order to interrogate Rav Huna’s statement, on today’s daf, (and lots of other places) the rabbis draw a parallel between relinquishing ownership of property and divorce. Where Rav Huna thinks that physical coercion does effect a transfer of ownership, Rav Yehuda challenges that idea, based on a mishnah we read way back in Gittin 88b:
A bill of divorce that the husband was compelled to give: If compelled by a Jewish court it is valid, but if compelled by a gentile court it is not valid.
Help us keep Jewish knowledge accessible to millions of people around the world.
Your donation to My Jewish Learning fuels endless journeys of Jewish discovery. With your help, My Jewish Learning can continue to provide nonstop opportunities for learning, connection and growth.
If a man is physically coerced into giving his wife a get, the divorce is valid, but only if it is a Jewish court forcing his hand. A non-Jewish court cannot compel a rabbinic get.
And with regard to gentiles, they may beat him and say to him: Do what the Jews are telling you.
A non-Jewish court may enforce the enactments of a rabbinic court, thereby upholding the rabbinic court’s authority to enact Jewish divorces. But if they can do that, why not just allow them to compel a man to give his wife a get?
Wasn’t it stated with regard to that mishnah that Rav Mesharshiyya says: By Torah law, even by gentiles, it is valid? And what is the reason they said by gentiles it is not valid? It is so that each and every woman will not go and depend on a gentile, and release herself from her husband.
Rav Mesharshiyya argues that not allowing a non-Jewish court to coerce a man to give a get is a “fence” around the Torah, a stringency meant to prevent unauthorized communal mixing. After all, according to rabbinic logic, if a Jewish woman knows that she could get a divorce in a non-Jewish court and bypass rabbinic authority entirely, why wouldn’t she? Whether or not you trust the rabbinic court to give your case a fair hearing, it would certainly be less awkward to share private details about an unhappy marriage with people you’re unlikely to run into in synagogue later that week.
But for the Talmud, that would undermine the entire rabbinic system, a system which is meant to be holistic and cover every aspect of human experience for those who participate in it, the inspiring and celebratory parts but also the awkward and painful parts.
The Talmud ultimately concludes that this case doesn’t successfully rebut Rav Huna’s opening position: A sale that has been physically coerced through torture is still a valid sale. However, the Talmud does create a lot of caveats. But let’s return to those who are prohibited from seeking a divorce in a non-Jewish court.
In regulating these relationships, the Talmud today reminds us that Jews, and Jewish women, have always had relationships outside of the Jewish community. Whether through business, legal cases or the everyday experiences of saying hello to neighbors, the religious communities of Babylonia mixed socially, in at least some ways. And so a woman who wanted a divorce likely had the social resources to find a non-Jewish court and work through it.
But today’s daf also reminds us that interreligious relationships existed not only between individuals, but also between institutions. The courts themselves could have relationships with each other: A rabbinic court might ask a non-Jewish court to physically coerce a get refuser and a non-Jewish court might coerce the get refuser to accept rabbinic authorities. Those institutional relationships were not only possible, but halakhically valid.
Read all of Bava Batra 48 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 12, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
