The Elliot B. Sitt Edition and Audio Series of the Talmud Bavli, Masechet Gittin, has been sponsored by our good friend and loyal student of Daf Yomi, Mr. Haim Medana, and his dear wife—may Hashem preserve them and grant them life. They have dedicated this tractate according to the principle taught by our rabbis: when one studies something, that study can avert the event from occurring. We therefore wish to study Masechet Gittin so that it will remain in the realm of learning and never come to fruition in actuality. May Haim and his dear wife, and all of the Jewish people, be blessed with peace in the home, success, and prosperity in all their endeavors. Amen.
We begin today five lines from the bottom. A man who was literally pierced by a Persian spear is not going to live. It seems that the Persians poisoned their spears. Rashi says that there was poison at the tip. In the interim, before he dies, he should be fed fatty meat roasted over coals and undiluted wine, at least to give him a little more life so that he can deliver his last will and testament to his family.
Similarly, a person who swallowed a hornet is not going to live. Nevertheless, he should be given strong vinegar to drink, because perhaps he will live a little longer and be able to instruct his household regarding his final wishes.
If a person eats the meat of an ox with turnips, sleeps outdoors beneath the moon, and it is the fourteenth or fifteenth day of the month during the summer season, he will contract an illness called Ahilu. The Gemara says that anyone who overeats will also be seized by Ahilu, even if he fills himself with dates.
The Gemara asks: Why should dates be different from any other food? The Gemara explains that the Sages said many things about dates. They satiate, they warm the body, they loosen the bowels, they provide energy, and they do not spoil those who partake of them. Dates are sweet, and Rashi explains these expressions as meaning that they warm the body, loosen the bowels, and provide strength. Although they are sweet, they do not cause a person to become spoiled by an appetite for rich foods. Therefore, one might have thought that, because of all the good qualities of dates, they do not cause illness. The Gemara teaches that even though dates possess these benefits, overeating them can still bring on Ahilu.
What is Ahilu? Rabbi Elazar said that it is the fire of the bones—the fever that comes from the bones. What is meant by “the fire of the bones”? Abaye said that it is bone fire. In other words, this is the name of a condition that enters the bones themselves; it consumes the marrow.
What is its remedy? Abaye said, “My nurse told me”—because he was an orphan and did not have a mother—that one should take all of the medicinal ingredients in the following manner. Ordinarily, a person takes a medicine for three days, seven days, or twelve days. This remedy, however, must be taken until the patient is cured.
Normally, medicine is taken on an empty stomach. This remedy is different. It is taken after the person has eaten and drunk, gone to the bathroom, relieved himself, and washed his hands. He should then take a fistful of lentil porridge—ground lentils mixed with salt—and a fistful of aged wine. He should knead them together and eat the mixture. He should then wrap himself in blankets and go to sleep so that he will sweat. No one should wake him until he rises on his own. He must be left undisturbed while he sweats. When he gets up, the blankets should be removed immediately. If this is not done, the illness may return.
Eliyahu Hanavi told Rabbi Natan: Eat one-third of your satiety, drink one-third of your capacity, and leave one-third unfilled. If you become angry, you will then be filled to capacity. In other words, anger also fills the stomach. If a person leaves extra room in his stomach and then becomes angry, he will be all right. If he does not leave any room and then becomes angry, he may become sick. Therefore, a person should leave some room for anger.
If a person wants to be spared from intestinal illness, he should dip his bread in vinegar or wine, both in the summer and in the winter. Regarding any food that gives him pleasure, he should withdraw from it and not overindulge in pleasurable foods. He should also not delay when he needs to relieve himself. Specifically, when a person needs to go, he should go and should not hold himself back.
Mar Ukva said that one who drinks a certain inferior type of white wine is seized by weakness. Rav Chisda said that there are sixty types of wine. The best is aromatic red wine. The worst is for a person to sit near a fire on mornings in the month of Nisan, oil himself, and then go out into the sun. He will be seized by this weakness.
If a person has blood let and then engages in marital relations on the same day, he will have weak children. A pregnancy resulting from that relationship will produce weak children. If both partners had blood let and engaged in relations that day, their children may suffer from something in the brain or cranium. This applies when they did not eat anything between the bloodletting and the relationship. If they tasted something in between, they have nothing to be concerned about, and their offspring will not be afflicted.
The Rambam writes that it is still detrimental to a person’s health to engage in relations on the day of bloodletting, as well as on the day before and the day after. Nevertheless, it will not affect the children if the couple ate in between.
Rav Huna said that if a person arrives home from the road and engages in relations that day, he will have weak children. It seems that this refers to someone who traveled by foot, as was mentioned, because of the physical difficulty involved.
When a person leaves the bathroom, he should not engage in relations immediately. He should wait the amount of time it takes to walk half a mil, approximately nine minutes. The demon that is in the bathroom accompanies him, and if he engages in relations, Heaven forbid, his children may suffer from epilepsy.
If he engages in relations while standing, he will suffer a severe cramp. If he does so while sitting, he will be seized by another illness. If she is above and he is below, he will also be seized by that illness. I will explain this.
What is the remedy for this condition? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that the remedy is a plant called delarya. The Gemara discusses the remedy first and then identifies the plant. Abaye said that it is a type of saffron that grows among wild thorns. Rav Pappa would chew it and swallow it, while Rav Pappi would chew it and spit it out. These were different methods of taking the remedy.
What is the remedy for impotence? One should take three portions of saffron that grew in a field fertilized with sheep manure. They should be ground, boiled in wine, and drunk as a mixture. Rabbi Yochanan said that this concoction restored him to his youth.
There are three things that drain a person’s strength: anxiety, travel, and sin. Rashi asks what kind of anxiety is meant. He explains that it refers to fear of something in the future, such as concern about one’s livelihood or fear of an enemy and war. These types of anxiety make a person sick and weaken him.
How do we know that fear weakens a person? It is written, “My heart is engulfed with anxiety; my strength has left me.” The expression “engulfed with anxiety” indicates that fear drains a person’s strength. Travel weakens a person because of the physical effort involved. Sin also weakens a person, as it says that because of his sin, his strength failed him.
Some say that three things wear down a person’s body. They are as follows: eating while standing, drinking while standing, and engaging in marital relations while standing.
Five things bring a person closer to death than to life. This seems to refer to performing these acts habitually, rather than doing them once. A person eats and immediately stands up; he drinks and immediately stands up; he lets blood and immediately stands up; he goes to sleep and immediately gets up without taking a moment to rest; or he engages in relations and immediately gets up.
There are six things that, if a person performs them in succession, cause him to die immediately. Again, this means that he is already sick and in danger of dying. A person comes home from the road exhausted, engages in relations, lets blood, enters the bathhouse, becomes drunk, and sleeps on the ground. If he does these things in that order, he will die. If he performs them out of order, he will merely become weak.
What does this mean? There was a woman named Dimah who had a slave. She performed three of these acts to her slave, and the slave died from only those three. The Gemara answers that he was weak to begin with and therefore could not endure them. Consequently, even the three acts alone were enough to kill him.
The following eight things are harmful in abundance but beneficial in moderation: travel, marital relations, wealth, work, wine, sleep, hot water, and bloodletting. Travel and marital relations are beneficial in moderation. Wealth is also good in moderation, but excessive wealth is not good because it takes a person away from the study of Torah. Work is beneficial, as we have learned: it keeps a person occupied and causes him to sweat, which is also healthy. Nevertheless, too much work is not good.
A little wine is beneficial, and a little sleep is beneficial, but too much of either is not good. Warm water is beneficial; bathing in it and drinking hot water are good in moderation. Bloodletting is also beneficial in moderation. These are the eight things.
There are eight things that diminish a man’s semen: salt, hunger, a condition resembling leprosy, crying, sleeping on the ground, eating coriander, eating hops when they are out of season, and bloodletting below the lower part of the body. Bloodletting below the lower part of the body is twice as harmful to the production of semen as the other items mentioned.
Just as bloodletting below the lower part of the body is twice as harmful to semen, bloodletting above the upper half of the body is twice as beneficial to it. Rav Pappa explains the line of demarcation. When the Gemara says “above” and “below,” it means above or below the testicles. Bloodletting below them diminishes semen, while bloodletting above them is beneficial.
Eating hops out of season is also harmful. The Sages taught: Just as hops are harmful when eaten out of season, they are beneficial when eaten in season. Rav Pappa said that their season is the month of Tammuz. Eating them in Tevet is eating them out of season. During the months of Nisan and Tishrei, they are neither beneficial nor harmful.
This concludes the discussion of remedies, and we now return to the Mishnah.
A man tells his agent, “Write a bill of divorce for my wife,” and then he is seized by a condition called Kordiakos. Afterward, he changes his mind and says, “Do not write it.” The Mishnah teaches that his later words are disregarded, because there is no doubt that he is possessed by the condition. We therefore pay no attention to his second statement.
The first opinion says that the bill of divorce should be written and delivered immediately. Rashi explains that even though he now has Kordiakos, the bill should be written and given to the woman, because he issued the instruction while he was healthy. We do not regard a person with Kordiakos as an insane person who lacks the capacity to issue instructions. Since he gave the instruction while he was healthy, the agent should write the bill immediately and deliver it.
Reish Lakish said that the bill should not be written until the man recovers. He does not mean that the man must be asked for permission again after he recovers, because he already gave his permission. His point is that one must wait until the man regains his mental clarity before writing and delivering the bill.
What is the basis of their disagreement? Reish Lakish views a person with Kordiakos as comparable to a sleeping person. Can a person give a bill of divorce while sleeping? Of course he can. He does not have to be awake at the moment the bill is delivered. He can be sleeping in his bed, as long as he previously gave the bill to an agent. From Reish Lakish’s perspective, a person with Kordiakos is like a sleeping person and can therefore give the bill.
Rabbi Yochanan, however, says that a person with Kordiakos is considered an insane person. Therefore, a bill of divorce cannot be delivered while he is in that state. This shows how severe the condition is: do we view the person as someone who is merely sleeping, in which case the bill can be delivered, or as an insane person, in which case it cannot?
Why does Rabbi Yochanan not compare him to a sleeping person? He answers that a sleeping person is not lacking any action. He merely needs to wake up, and once he wakes up, he is normal. A person with Kordiakos, however, requires an action. As we learned earlier, there is a remedy for this condition, and until he takes the remedy, the condition will not go away. It is therefore worse than sleep. A sleeping person is passive and only needs to awaken, whereas this person needs to take an action—the meat roasted over coals and the wine that were mentioned earlier—to cure the Kordiakos. That is why Rabbi Yochanan does not compare him to a sleeping person.
The Gemara asks whether Rabbi Yochanan indeed compares a person with Kordiakos to an insane person. Why would he do so? Rav Yehuda said in the name of Shmuel that if a person’s two identifying organs were cut, either both of them or the majority of both of them, and the dying man signaled to an agent that he wanted a bill of divorce given to his wife, the agent writes the bill and delivers it.
This man was cut up and was hanging on the gallows, yet he gave a signal that he wanted a bill of divorce. Perhaps he did not want his wife to fall to a levirate marriage. The law is that the agent writes and gives the bill. What do we see from here? We see that although this man is about to die, he is still considered to have mental clarity. If he can give a bill of divorce at that point, why does Rabbi Yochanan treat the person with Kordiakos as an insane person and require us to wait until he recovers?
The Gemara’s question assumes that a person who is about to die is confused and distressed. He knows that his end has come, and yet Rabbi Yochanan says that the agent can write the bill. Why, then, is he different from a person with Kordiakos, for whom the agent may not write the bill while he is in that condition?
The Gemara rejects the comparison. In the case of a person who is dying, there is no lack of clarity in his mind. He is beginning to feel the weakness of death, but his mind remains clear. In the case of Kordiakos, however, the person’s mind itself is impaired. Therefore, the cases are not comparable.
The Gemara raises a question against Shmuel. Shmuel said that if the man’s two identifying organs were cut, or the majority of them were cut, and he instructed the agent to write a bill of divorce, the agent writes it. Did Shmuel really say this?
A man’s neck was cut, and afterward he ran away. Witnesses were able to testify that he had died, even though they had not actually seen him die. They saw the condition in which he was left and could therefore go to his wife and testify that he was dead, allowing her to marry. The question is: if he was capable of giving a bill of divorce, how can the witnesses testify that he was dead? If he could give a bill, perhaps he was still alive. The Gemara seems to say: make up your mind. If he can give a bill of divorce, he is alive; if he is certainly going to die, how can the witnesses testify that he is dead?
The Gemara answers that at the time he gives the bill, he is alive, and there is no question that the bill is valid because it is given during his lifetime. If he does not have the opportunity to give the bill, however, the witnesses can testify that he is dead even if they did not actually see him die, because he is certainly going to die. There are two stages: while he is alive, he can give the bill and complete the process; if he does not give it, the witnesses may testify that he is certain to die, even though they did not see the moment of death.
If he is certainly going to die, the Gemara asks, why is the murderer not sent into exile? Ordinarily, a person who kills unintentionally is sent into exile. If the proof is that this man is certain to die, why does the murderer not receive the punishment of exile?
The Gemara gives two answers. Perhaps the man did not die directly from the wound. Instead, the air entered the wound and caused him to die. Had the air not entered, he would not have died. The murderer was therefore only a contributing factor, while the air was what actually caused the death. A person is sent into exile only when he himself is the cause of the death, not when he is merely one contributing factor.
The second possibility is that the man himself brought about his death through his movements. He was jumping and shaking after his neck had been cut, and those movements caused him to die. Rashi explains that he died through the shaking and movement of the wound. Although the man was certainly going to die—either because the air would enter the wound or because his own movements would cause him to die—the murderer is not sent into exile in either case, because the death was not caused directly by the murderer alone.
What is the practical difference between these explanations? The Gemara gives two differences. In the first case, the murderer killed him in a marble house. Since the house was completely enclosed, there was no wind and the air could not have entered the wound. Nevertheless, the wounded man was moving and shaking. According to the explanation that the death was caused by the air, the murderer would be exempt, because there was no air. According to the explanation that the death was caused by the man’s movements, the murderer would also be exempt, because the man’s shaking caused his own death.
The other case is that the man was wounded outside, where there was wind, but he did not move or shake. According to the opinion that the wind caused his death, the murderer is exempt. According to the opinion that the death was caused by the man’s movements, the murderer would be liable, because the man did not move and the wind was the cause.
These are the practical differences between the two explanations: whether the death resulted from the wind entering the wound or from the wounded man’s movements. Both opinions agree that the murderer is not sent into exile when the death was caused by an additional factor rather than directly by the murderer.
Let us now read the beginning of Tosafot. The Mishnah says that the later words have no effect. According to Rabbi Yochanan, who holds that a person with Kordiakos must recover before the bill is given, where does he learn this? The Mishnah could have said that when the man later changes his mind, the agent should write and deliver the bill anyway. Instead, it says that his later words are nothing. Tosafot explains that the extra wording teaches that the bill should not be written until he recovers.
At the same time, the Mishnah does not say that the man must be examined or asked a second time after he recovers. This indicates that he does not need to give permission again, because he already gave it while he was healthy. The teaching is therefore that one must wait until he recovers, but once he recovers, there is no need to ask him again.
Tosafot then discusses the case of the man whose neck and identifying organs were cut and who signaled that a bill should be given to his wife. When they asked him whether they should write the bill, he responded with a clear signal. There was no need to examine him further, because in this case he was dying and his intention was clear. This differs from the case of Kordiakos because the dying man still possessed mental clarity.
Tosafot asks how long we consider such a dying man to retain his clarity. The answer is that when we speak of asking him and assessing him, the assessment must be made at the time the bill is given. As long as we know that he has not lost his mental capacity, we can assume that his intention remains valid.
What about a seriously ill person? We said that a seriously ill person can also give a bill of divorce, but where is his mental clarity? We must ensure that he still possesses it until the bill is actually delivered. Suppose he instructed that the bill should be given while he had mental clarity, and the bill was written, but by the time it was delivered he had already lost his clarity. That is worse than the case of Kordiakos.
If the seriously ill person deteriorates in the interim, the bill is invalid even if he eventually becomes clear-minded again. Why? Because his condition is not necessarily curable. Reish Lakish’s entire reasoning was that the person with Kordiakos can be cured. In the case of a seriously ill person, however, there may be no cure. Therefore, even Reish Lakish will agree that the bill is invalid if the person loses his mental clarity before its delivery.
If a seriously ill person instructs that a bill of divorce be given, the delivery must be expedited so that it takes place while he still has mental clarity. Sometimes a seriously ill person does not possess that clarity. One must determine his mental state: is he merely sleeping, or is he like an insane person? Even in the case of a seriously ill person, the delivery of a bill is not automatic. There must be an assessment of whether he has sufficient clarity to give the bill.
The Gemara then returns to the man whose neck was cut. It says that he was alive at the point when he instructed the agent to give the bill, even though the witnesses later testified that he had died. At the time he gave the instruction, he was still alive. Ultimately, he died before he could be brought to trial.
If the man had been holding a sword and killing another person, the case would be different, and he might be sent into exile. In a case of unintentional killing, exile applies when the person’s act directly caused the death. But if the man intentionally performed the act that led to the death, it does not matter what ultimately killed the victim. Nevertheless, Tosafot is uncertain about the precise reason. Perhaps there is a special teaching regarding exile that exempts a person unless his act directly caused the death. Tosafot suggests that there may be a specific derivation concerning exile that requires the death to result directly from the killer’s act, without an additional contributing cause.
Tosafot distinguishes between the laws of exile and the laws of death. It may therefore be that the same distinction applies here: either the man was killed in a marble house, where there was no wind, but he moved and shook; or he was killed outdoors, where there was wind, but he did not move. The practical difference depends on which factor is regarded as having caused the death—whether the entering air or the movements of the wounded man. Both opinions agree that the death must be attributed directly to the relevant cause for the punishment of exile to apply.