When Rav Simi bar Ashi attacks Abaye's Kashya on Rava, this in effect means that he is giving an answer to Rava's position.

Rava said that if one wrote a Get and put it in his own yard and then wrote a deed granting her his yard as a present, this means that she acquires the yard and also the Get inside it, and therefore she is divorced. Abaye asked that this is not similar to the standard case of putting a Get in her yard, because this is a yard that she received voluntarily as a present (and could have refused to accept), while in the standard case of her yard she could not refuse to accept the Get placed there. Rav Simi answers Abaye's question by stating that there is another way that a wife can receive the Get through a medium that she appointed voluntarily -- namely, when she appoints a Shali'ach to accept her Get. If so, the wife can also receive the yard as a present and thereby acquire the Get placed there.

Rav Simi has answered Abaye's Kashya on Rava, so the Halachah follows Rava (see Rosh, end #20).

(We still need to understand how Rava and Rav Simi will deflect the two answers that Abaye gave to Rav Simi's objections.)

Kol Tuv,

Dovid Bloom

I hope now, bs'd, to deal with how the Rishonim explain Rava and Rav Simi's ways of deflecting the two answers that Abaye gave to Rav Simi's attack on him.

1) Rav Simi's original defense of Rava was to say that we find that the wife can voluntarily initiate a Shali'ach to receive her Get, so therefore we can understand what Rava meant when he said that she can voluntarily receive a yard into which the husband will later place the Get against her will. Abaye now asks two questions on Rav Simi. The first question is: How can Rav Simi compare the Chatzer to a Shali'ach? They are two entirely different Halachic concepts! Rava was talking about putting the Get in the yard, which has the law of a Chatzer. Chatzer is derived from "Yad" - the Kinyan that works because anything in a person's hand belongs to him, and consequently everything in his Chatzer also belongs to him. However, Rav Simi is discussing the concept of Shali'ach, which is totally different. The concept of Shali'ach is derived (in Kidushin 41a) from Devarim 24:1 whch states "v'Shilchah" -- "And he sends her away."

2) Tosfos (DH Atu) comes to the defense of Rav Simi. Rav Simi maintains that even though Chatzer is derived from Yad, this does not necessarily mean that it must be similar to Yad in every way. Rav Simi learned this from the fact that a woman can appoint a Shali'ach to receive her Get. The latter fact proves that even though the standard Get can be given against the wishes of the wife, nevertheless sometimes a Get can be given in a way that works only if the wife agreed to part of the process; namely where she appointed a Shali'ach to accept it. If so, we now can also say that even though Yad works even against the wishes of the wife, nevetheless it is possible to have an aspect of a Yad which depends on the agreement of the wife, namely the Get can be placed in a Chatzer that the wife obtained voluntarily. Even though Chatzer is derived from Yad, nevertheless it need not be identical to Yad in every respect.

3) So we have now defended Rava from Abaye's first question. How do we defend him from Abaye's second question? The latter rejects Rav Simi's answer because of the fact that sometimes a Shali'ach to receive a Get can work in a way that is totally involuntary, namely when the father accepts a Get for his minor daughter against her will. We find an answer to Abaye's question in the Me'iri. He writes that it is possible to say that when a father accepts a Get for his daughter he is not considered a Shali'ach of his daughter, but rather he is totally in the place of his daughter, and is stronger than a mere Shali'ach. Therefore, we remain with Rav Simi's valid argument, that the Shali'ach to receive the wife's Get always starts off as voluntary, and therefore even though the wife accepting the Get in her Chatzer started off in a voluntary way, when she received the Chatzer as a present, this does not prevent the Get from being effective when it is later put into the Chatzer against the wishes of the wife.

4) Since the Rishonim have defended Rav Simi against the two challenges of Abaye, it follows that we are now left with a dispute between Rava and Rav Simi on the one hand, and against Abaye on the other hand, with no conclusive proofs to either side. The general rule is that the Halachah follows Rava when he disagrees with Abaye. If Rav Simi is also on Rava's side there is even more reason that the Halachah should follow Rava. This is why the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch rule according to Rava.

Kol Tuv,

Dovid Bloom