why does the absolute last mishnah of the masechta discuss why we write a get and for what reasons you would divorce your wife, while the first mishnah discusses some random case of hwere a shaliach is bringing a get from medinas hayam?? the last mishnah should eb the first mishnah!
joe blumenthal, brooklyn, NY, USA
That is a very interesting question; the last Mishnah does seem to be out of place. As I have not yet seen any discussion of your question in the Acharonim I offer you my own thoughts on the matter, for what they are worth.
The closing Mishnah cites the opinion of Beis Hillel that a person may divorce his wife if she is a bad cook. Rebbi Akiva goes further and states that he may divorce her simply because he has found a "more fitting woman."
One might mistakenly conclude from such rulings that marriage is not a sacrosanct institution in Judaism; wives may be chosen and sent away at a whim. However, a closer look at the words of Chazal on this subject reveals that the opposite is true. In many places, Chazal emphasize how terrible divorce is and how it should be avoided at all costs. (See, for example, the Gemara at the end of Gitin and in Sanhedrin 22a.)
Perhaps Rabeinu ha'Kadosh did not want to begin with this Mishnah for this reason. If this had been the starting Mishnah, setting the tone of the Masechta, one might lose respect for marriage. Rather, the Mishnah waited until the very end of the Maseches, after discussing all the detailed Halachos of a Get, and how the writing of every letter in the Get as well as its delivery must be done with great care. After this, when the reader realizes how ominous a Get is, the Mishnah reveals that the Torah nevertheless allows divorce (according to Beis Hillel) even in situations which do not demand it. (The Torah obviously must have good reasons for choosing to allow this, despite the fact that it is so frowned upon.)
Some support for this idea can be found in the Meleches Shlomo at the beginning of Gitin, in the name of Tosfos Shantz. Tosfos Shantz asks why the Mishnah says "ha'Mevi Get," implying that delivering a Get is b'Di'eved and not l'Chatchilah (see Chulin 3a, 13b). He answers that the Mishnah means to imply that giving a get is generally frowned upon, as the Gemara at the end of the Masechta implies, and therefore it is never l'Chatchilah to give a Get. According to my above explanation, the Mishnah is following a single theme by not starting with the last Mishnah, and by using the word "ha'Mevi" at the beginning of the Mishnah that does start the Masechta. The Gemara is expressing this theme by ending the Masechta with an emphasis on the inadvisablity of divorce.
Be well and Chag Same'ach,
Mordecai
>> the last mishnah should be the first mishnah!<<
I have often noticed that the Mishnayos of a Masechta are not in the order that we might expect. Sometimes reasons are openly discussed. For example, in Masechta Shabbos, we might expect the list of the 39 Melochos to be first, but in fact we have first halochos of carrying (as Tosfos explains there), then a chronological order of preparations for
Shabbos. Other Masechtos start with technical details of some point, before progressing to a more general case
Kol Tuv
Mark Bergman
Manchester, UK
True, but this time the "general" Mishnah is atypically the very last Mishnah of the Maseches!
Be well,
Mordecai