About this episode
This week's learning is sponsored by Jonathan Aibel in honor of Natasha Shabat. "Giving in honor of my teacher, who has opened many doors of Torah for me." Rava explained the opinion of Rabbi Shimon in the Mishna to be referring to a case where the woman sent an agent to accept a betrothal for her and specified with what the husband would betroth her and the messenger accepted something else of higher value. He ruled that this betrothal is effective as she was merely suggesting a possible method. Abaye explains that Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Elazar each hold the same thing but in a different case - one regarding a regular document/tied document and the other regarding a woman who appoints an agent to receive her divorce document and also specifies the location where the agent is to go to receive it. Ula qualified the debate between Rabbi Shimon and the rabbis as a case of differences in monetary value, but not differences in social status as not every woman would be happy to marry a man of higher status. A braita is brought to strengthen his qualification and it is derived from the Mishnayot here as well. Mar, the son of Rav Ashi raises a difficulty about the derivation from the Mishna but it is resolved in two possible ways. The Gemara brings in a braita with possible terms a husband can use as a condition when betrothing a wife and an explanation is brought for each as to what is meant by that, such as, "that I am a learner," what type of learner does he need to be, i.e. how do we check the veracity of his statement? Following a discussion on "on the condition that I am wise" which mentioned a number of examples of the best of the sages, the Gemara agra brings a series of statements: "Ten measures of...came down to the world and nine of them were taken by..."