Extempore Effusions on the Completion of Gittin chapters 8 and 9

Chapter 8 הזורק גט לאשתו 

(77a)

If you throw your Get into the yard

Where your wife stands (she should be on guard)

Or into her lap

Or the basket she strapped

To her arm, she’s divorced. That’s not hard.

(78a)

If you throw a Get into the bed

Where your wife lies (it falls near her head)

Is it valid? It is

If it’s her bed, not his.

But is her bed not his, since they’re wed?

(79b)

An “old Get” is one that’s outdated

For Hillel, I fear, it is fated

To be rendered not good

But says Shammai it should

Be fine, though inscribed ere they mated.

 (80a)

A kingdom considered unfit

You can’t write a Get unto it.

This includes all of Rome

Though Jews called it their home,

Gittin cannot be in Latin writ.

(81a)

First dismiss her, then say, “What the hell,

I’ll sleep with her in a motel.”

Does she need one more Get?

Does the first one hold yet?

Can we say their divorce is still swell?

Chapter 9 – המגרש את אשתו

(82a)

Said a man to his ex, “You are free

To marry all men except me

And except my friend Ed

If you land in his bed,

This divorce holds no weight.” Can that be?

(83a)

Eliezer died. Four sages came

To address a point made in his name

Akiva and Tarfon

Yossi on his car phone

Elazar – we accept just his claim.

(84a)

You’re divorced, dear, so long as you wed

My relative, dear cousin Fred –

You’re divorced if you fly

Or go up to the sky

Does the Get hold if that’s what he said?

(85a)

“You’re divorced. But you can’t marry Dad

Or your father, my brother, that lad

Who works as a slave,

Or that non-Jewish knave.”

Well of course she can’t. What, are you mad?

(86b)

Water with red heifer dust—

If an animal drinks it, it’s bust.

But a dove can drink it

Doves will suck, but not spit

And is Kartzit a creature we trust?

(87a)

If two Gittin are on the same page

Side-by-side, so it’s quite hard to gauge

Because one’s signed in Greek

One in Hebrew, this wreaks

Havoc. Who signed which Get at which stage?

(88b)

Beat a man ‘til he lets his wife go—

Is that Get OK? Do we say no?

A Get by coercion

Is not fine if Persian

Or Roman courts leveled the blow.

(89a)

If a rumor is heard in the town

That a woman’s been sleeping around.

Do we say she can’t wed

Any priest in her bed—

Promiscuity surely abounds.

(90a)

Hillel says: If you wife burns your soup

You can tell her: You must fly the coop!

If you find someone nice

Whom you’d rather call wife

Oh how low do we then let you stoop?

(90b)

On the last page of Gittin it’s said:

Woe unto the first wife that you wed

If she then is let go

Even God cries, oh no

Doleful tears on the altar are shed.