{"collection":"Texts of Judaism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_bata_bata12_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_bata_bata12_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_jud_bata_bata12_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/bata/bata12.htm","summary":"This is a selection from the Babylonian Talmud's tractate Gittin, translated and compiled by Leo Auerbach in 1944, presenting both Mishna (early rabbinic legal rulings, roughly 200 CE) and Gemara (later commentary and case law). The text centers on the legal requirements for valid writs of divorce and bills of emancipation, detailing procedural rules about witnesses, document authentication, and the conditions under which technically defective documents can still produce legitimate legal outcomes. A recurring and distinctive organizing principle throughout is the phrase \"for the sake of peace\" (tikun ha-olam), invoked to justify pragmatic accommodations \u2014 such as protecting the poor of foreigners' right to glean fields, extending greetings to non-Jews, and compelling masters to free partially-enslaved men so they can marry and procreate. The text also engages seriously with the status of enslaved people, recording debates and edge cases about how slaves can attain freedom \u2014 through escape, through a master's symbolic acts like placing phylacteries on them, or through deathbed declarations \u2014 with named rabbis disagreeing on the binding outcomes. What is notable is how the Gemara portions shift from abstract ruling to narrative case study, showing judges like Rab Papa devising clever procedural workarounds to enforce equitable outcomes within formal legal constraints. Readers interested in ancient Jewish law, the ethics of legal pragmatism, or the treatment of slavery and gender in rabbinic literature will find concrete, detailed material here.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Babylonian Talmud in Selection: Nashim (Women): Divor...","tradition":"Texts of Judaism","translated_text":null,"word_count":1655}