Bava Batra 164: Transgressions Related to Documents

The rabbis discuss documents that are written on parchment that has been written on and erased.  If the parchment is completely written on and then erased, written on again and witnessed/signed, is that document valid?  What if part of the document is clear and another part is erased?  Does that invalidate the document?  What if that parchment is compared to another piece of parchment that has been erased/written upon?  The rabbis note that every sheet of parchment is unique.   Parchment will look different when it has been erased twice.  In fact, parchment will look different when it has been left out for a day.  

The rabbis move on to the topic of gittin, annulled marriage documents, and the signatures of witnesses on the inside of a tied get compared to standard gittin.   We learn that a standard get is dated according to the year of the king's reign.  A tied get is written one year longer than the beginning of the king's reign.  The rabbis suggest a circumstance where people might take advantage of that difference to misrepresent himself and not deliver a get.  Or perhaps this would be impossible, because we cannot write receipts for gittin; only the document itself is provided as a receipt of payment.

The Gemara wonders if Rebbi understood tied gittin, for he said that one was "postdated".  Is this how we know about the custom to date a tied get a year beyond the king's actual reign?  A standard get is dated in the year of the King in the first year of his reign.  The rabbis wonder what should be done in different cases that might confuse that year with the year before.  Perhaps the king was deposed and then reinstated - with or without the knowledge of the people.  How is the year of his reign described? 

The rabbis then veer into a conversation about numbers.  The first year of a king's reign is called "archan" and the second year is called "digun".  If a person takes on the vows of nazirut, s/he is first called "heina".  After that, her/his times as a nazirite are known as "digun", and then "trigun", and then "tetrigun" and then "pentigun".   The rabbis then consider the number of walls on a house that can and cannot become ritually impure due to tza'ara.  A house that has three or five sides - or is round - will not contract tza'ara.  

A story is shared about a date that is so concealed in the folds of a get that Rebbi could not see it.  When Rabbi Shimon jumps in to say that he did not write it; Rav Yehuda did, he is scolded fro speaking lashon ha'ra.  A second story is told - the same, except that the document was Tehilim, Psalms.  The rabbis turn their attention to lashon ha'ra.  A person should not speak badly of another, of course.  But is it lashon ha'ra to speak approvingly of another?  Perhaps others will use that against the person and speak badly of him.

Rav Amran suggests that almost all people transgress in three ways every day: thoughts of sexual transgression, feeling that he is worthy to have his prayers answered while he is in prayer or lack of concentration in prayer, and lashon ha'ra.  The rabbis suggest that people might not speak lashon ha'ra every day, but people make comments that could be taken as positive or negative every day.  Rav Yehudah says that most people also transgress the halachot regarding buying and selling, and some people transgress other halachot as well.