Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Baba Bathra

Folio 162a

— R. Amram said: Because the last line cannot be taken as a determining factor.¹  Said R. Nahman to R. Amram: Whence do²  you [derive] this? [The other] replied to him: Because it was taught, If the [signatures of the] witnesses were removed two lines from the text, [the deed] is invalid; [if only] one line, [it is] valid. Why are two lines different [from one line]? Because one might commit forgery and add³  [some unauthorised matter]! [In the case of] one line also [might not one] commit forgery and add³  [some spurious matter]? Must we not then conclude [that] the last line cannot be taken as a determining factor'? This proves it.

1. Lit., '(people) do not learn from the last line'. Witnesses do not as a rule take care to write their signatures immediately below the text of the deed, and usually leave some space between their signatures and the text. As this space might be used by the unscrupulous for the insertion, in his own interests, of an unauthorised line, it has been provided that nothing essential that has not already appeared in the text of the deed may appear in its last line. Consequently, should this line ever contain a vital point not recorded in the text, it would immediately be detected as spurious.
2. Lit., 'to'.
3. Lit., 'write'.

The question was raised: What [is the ruling in the case of] a line and a half?¹  — Come and hear: 'If the [signatures of the] witnesses were removed two lines from the text,²  [the deed] is invalid',³  [from which it may be inferred that if they were removed] a line and a half only [the deed] is valid. Explain, [however], the first clause: '[If only] one line, [it is] valid'³  [from which it follows] that only [if the interval was] one line is [the deed] valid but [if it was] a line and a half [the deed] is invalid! From this, then, no deduction can be made.⁴  What about an answer to the question?⁵  — Come and hear what has been taught: [If] the [signatures of the] witnesses were removed two lines from the text, [the deed] is invalid; [if] less than this⁶  [it is] valid.⁷

[If] four or five witnesses have signed on a deed, and the first two were found to be relatives or [such as are in any other way] disqualified,⁸  the evidence may be confirmed by the remaining witnesses.⁹  [This] affords support to [the view of] Hezekiah; for Hezekiah said, '[If] it¹⁰  was filled with [the signatures of] relatives, [the deed] is valid',¹¹  And there is nothing strange¹²  [in this law],¹³  for [while] air [space]¹⁴  renders the festive tabernacle ritually unfit when [that space measures only] three [handbreadths],¹⁵  unfit roofing¹⁶  renders [it] ritually unfit [only] when [that roofing measures] four [handbreadths].¹⁷

The question was raised: [Do] the 'two lines' which were mentioned¹⁸

1. If a space sufficient for the writing of a line and a half was left between the text and the witnesses' signatures.
2. Cf. BaH, a.l.
3. Supra 162a.
4. Since the deduction from the first part is in contradiction to that of the second, the Baraitha can be used as a guide only for that which it actually teaches.
5. Lit., 'what becomes about it'.
6. I.e., a line and a half.
7. Tosef. Git. VII.
8. Cf. Rashb. a.l. Current edd., 'four and (or) five witnesses … and one of them was found to be a relative etc.'
9. Though the signatures of the disqualified witnesses are entirely ignored, the space, nevertheless, on which their signatures are written, even if it extends to two lines between the text and the signatures of the qualified witnesses, is not regarded as a blank to disqualify the deed.
10. The blank space of two lines between the text of a deed and the signatures of the witnesses.
11. Git. 87b.
12. Lit., 'be not astonished'.
13. That a blank of two lines renders the deed invalid, while disqualified signatures. though ignored, and though covering the space of two lines, do not.
14. Corresponding to a blank in a deed.
15. If the tabernacle has only three walls, and the air space of three handbreadths in the roof runs across the entire length or breadth of the tabernacle intercepting one or two of the walls, so that the tabernacle is, as it were, short of the prescribed minimum number of walls. (Cf. Tosaf. s.v. [H] a.l.).
16. The roof of the festive tabernacle must consist of twigs or any other suitable materials which grow from the ground and are not subject to Levitical defilement.
17. Suk. 17a.
18. In respect of the law that a blank space of two lines between the text of a deed and the signatures of the witnesses renders the deed invalid.