גט פשוט – a plain document similar to ours which are not sewn or folded; and every document is called a Get.

עדיו מתוכו – from the inside, similar to ours that we make.

מקושר מאחוריו – he (i.e., the scribe) writes one line or two and wraps them on the blank part and sews it. And one witnesses inscribes on the wrapping from the outside, and he (i.e., the scribe) goes back and writes two lines from the inside and wraps them on the blank part and the second witnesses inscribes on the wrapping from the outside. And similarly, the third witness. But the Rabbis established a folded document because of stringent Kohanim, because they would write a bill-of-divorcement suddenly to their wives and then regret it and they wouldn’t be able to restore them (i.e., because a Kohen cannot marry a divorced woman – see Leviticus 21:7), and the Rabbis ordained for them a folded bill-of-divorcement which is not easy to write quickly, lest in the midst of it, he is pacified. And just as they ordained/instituted a folded document for a Get, so they instituted for other documents that the Sages did not disagree with.

שניהם פסולין – for they did not act as the Sages ordained.

שיכול לעשותו פשוט – for if the seams would tear and the Get would open, it would be a plain document.

רשב"ג אומר הכל כמנההג המדינה – there is a dispute between Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel and the Rabbis in a place where there is the practice of [both] a plain document and a folded document. If someone said to him: “Make for me a folded [document]” and he went and he made for him an ordinary document, or “Make for me an ordinary document” and he made for him a folded document, the first Tanna/teacher [of the Mishnah] holds that he is particular, and it is unfit. But Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel holds that since with both (i.e., the plain document and folded document), it [depends upon] local custom, he is not strict and it is appropriate/fit, but the Halakha is according to the first Tanna/teacher [of the Mishnah] (see Talmud Bava Batra 165a).

פשוט שכתוב בו עד אחד – this is what he said: just as when a plain document in which only one witness is written in it is unfit from the Torah, so also a folded document in which only two witnesses are written in it is also unfit from the Torah.

אין לו אלא עשרים – and even though [it states] one-hundred zuzim, they are twenty-five Selaim. The hand of the owner of the document is at a disadvantage. And this is how we interpret for him a document: one hundred inferior Zuzim are not worth other than twenty Selaim.

אין לי אלא מנה – twenty five Selaim, this is how we interpret it for a document: One hundred Zuzim which are thirty light and inferior Selaim, which are twenty-five from the good ones.

ונמחקו – the number that is written afterwards is erased.

ומלמטה מאתים – when he doubles his words in the document.

הכל הולך אחר התחתון – as long as it will not be written last in the document.

למה כותבין את העליון – for since at the end, the document repeats and states it again, and the responsibility of this money such-and-such I accepted upon myself (see Talmud Bava Batra 167b).

כותב גט לאיש – and [the witnesses] inscribe [their names], and he will divorce here when he desires, and even though his wife is not with him, for she is divorced against her will.

ושובר לאשה – which she does for her husband regarding her Jewish marriage settlement/Ketubah, for it is a liability for him to her, and is a benefit for her husband, as we obtain a privilege in behalf of a person in his absence (see Tractate Eruvin, Chapter 7, Mishnah 11).

ובלבד שיהא מכירן – that the scribe and the witnesses recognize/know the man and the woman [getting divorced]., whether with a Jewish bill of divorce or a receipt, for if they do not recognize them lest he write a Get/Jewish bill of divorce in the name of another married woman where his name is the same as the other man’s name, and she should take out that same Jewish bill of divorce where she is not divorced by it and similarly for the receipt.

והלוה נותן שכר – even if it is giving a person goods to trade with another (usually two shares of the profit going to the investor and one to the trader) where half of it is a loan and half of it is a deposit. Nevertheless, the person receiving the business pays the fee to the scribe (see Talmud Bava Batra 168a).

שטרי אריסות – the person who goes down to the land to work it and to guard it for one-half, one-third or one-fourth [of the profit].

קבלנות – for such-and-such Khorim per year, whether it produced or it didn’t produce.

שטרי בירורין – this one (i.e. litigant) chooses one judge who will judge for him and that one (i.e. litigant) chooses for himself one [judge] and they write in a document: “so-and-so chose judge so-and-so and his claims are this and that,” in order that they don’t retract and raise a complaint.

כותבים שנים – to each one of the litigants a separate document in which their claims are arranged in it, but the Halakha is not according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel. But rather, they write one document containing the claims of each of the litigants and that so-and-so (i.e., the litigant) chose so-and-so as a judge that would adjudicate for him and so-and-so (i.e., the other litigant) chosen so-and-so as a judge that would adjudicate for him.

והשליש את שטרו – the lender and the borrower transferred the document to the hand of a third-party for it was a trouble for them to write a receipt and they relied upon the third party.

ר' יוסי אומר יתן – for he holds that Asmakhta (i.e., a promise to submit to a forfeiture of pledged property – or equivalent – without having received a sufficient consideration) is a valid legal transfer of property (see Talmud Bava Batra 168a). A person who promises t his fellow something on the condition that he will do something for him in the future, and he relies upon his intention at the time of the condition that he would be able to fulfill it. But when the time comes, he is not able to fulfill it. This is called Asmakhta. But with regard to the Jewish legal decision, Asmakhta does not acquire/gives no title, unless he acquired it from his hand in an important Jewish court. But he caused to take hold of his merits in the same Jewish court where he transferred his documents and his proofs, and he said: “if I don’t bring it from now until thirty days, my benefits will be voided. But my teachers/Rabbis explain that every Jewish court that are specialists and know the laws of Asmakhta are called an important Jewish court in this matter. But Maimonides says that there is no important Jewish court other than a Jewish court ordained in the Land of Israel.

מי שנמחק שטרו – and there were witnesses who saw when it was blotted out on its own, or smudged by water.

מעמיד עליו עדים – that know from when it was written and what was written in it, and they make for him an attestation before a Jewish court and they write for him everything that had been written in that document.

יחליף – he should tear the document and write another according to the remaining balance.

נמצא זה – the borrower needs to guard his receipt from the mice, for if he loses it, the creditor will collect all of his liability.

אמר רבי יוסי וכן יפה לו – to the creditor, for the borrower must guard his receipt and hurry to pay him back, and no harm will come to the creditor to write another document that had an advanced time for the liability [to be paid off] and that he returns now and he would not be able to seize the sold property unlawfully other than from the time of the second document. And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yosi that we write a receipt.

קח לך עבדים – that they should warm up for you the bathhouse that it is like what our father left us, so it shall be forever, and even though that we have in the first chapter (Tractate Bava Batra, Chapter 1, Mishnayot 1 and 6), concerning something where there isn’t the law of division. One can say, “I will make a wall or I will divide it,” meaning to say, “sell me your part or I will sell [to you] my part. But it is different here because the poor person cannot say, “I will divide it” because he has nothing with which to buy.”

אינן יכולין להוציא שטר חוב זה על זה – because each one can claim that this document that is in your hands, I returned to you when I paid you repaid me the monies that I lent to you.

ולא אחד יכול להוציא שטר חוב עליהם – because each one can supersede him regarding his fellow.

ישלשו – he will write the name of his father’s father.

ואם היו משולשים – that their names and the names of their fathers and the names of their father’s fathers are the same.

יכתבו סימן – a certain [sign] that this is red-spotted or long or short and if their signs are the same, they should write, “Kohen,” if one is a Kohen and the other is an Israelite.

נמצא – to one borrower there two documents from two loans that he borrowed from him.

הקטן אינו פרוע – that one document among his documents is spoken of and not two.

לא יפרע מן הערב – first, until the borrower is brought to court, and the Jewish court makes him liable [to pay it off]; and if he doesn’t have wherewith to pay, then he can collect from the guarantor.

רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר אם יש נכסים ללוה – he should not collect payment from the guarantor, not from the fact that the first Tanna/teacher holds that even if the borrower has property, he should collect payment from the guarantor, but rather, because our Mishnah is deficient, and this is how it should be taught: A person who loans his fellow through a guarantor should not collect payment from the guarantor, but if he said, “on condition that I can collect payment from whomever I desire,” he can collect payment from the guarantor. When is this said? When the borrower lacks property, but if the borrower has property, he should collect payment from the guarantor, or from a person who assumes the other man’s obligations unconditionally (see Talmud Bava Batra 173b and 174a), even though the borrower has property, he should collect from the person who assumes the other man’s obligations unconditionally. Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel says that both the guarantor and the man who assumes the other person’s obligations unconditionally are the same: if the borrower has property, he (i.e., the creditor) may not collect from them. But the Halakha is not according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel. The guarantor is the person who says [to the creditor]: “Give him and I will be the guarantor [of your repayment].” The קבלן /the person who assumes the other person’s obligations unconditionally who says: “Give him, and I will give it to you.”

הערב לאשה בכתובתה – and the husband lacks property, and the guarantor needs to pay off her Ketubah/Jewish marriage contract [in event of the husband’s death or a divorce], he should not pay off the Ketubah until the husband first makes her take a vow against deriving any benefit with the knowledge/consent of the public a vow that cannot be revoked, that he cannot restore her [as his wife], for we suspect lest it is his intention to restore her [as his wife] and to consume her Jewish marriage contract settlement after she has collected her settlement from the guarantor and regarding law, the guarantor of a Ketubah is not mortgaged and he is not liable to pay it off [for the husband] and even if the husband lacks property. What is the reason that he has performed a Mitzvah and nothing is missing from it? But if he is mortgaged as a guarantor for the Ketubah of his son, a father regarding his son is himself personally mortgaged, but a קבלן/someone who unconditionally assumes the other man’s obligations when the Jewish marriage contract is mortgaged, the wife can claim the Ketubah from him (i.e., the קבלן ) at first, and even if the husband has property, but the husband forces her to take an vow against benefit first with the consent of the public.

המלוה את חבירו בשטר – even though it is not written [in the loan document] property which is pledged from which debts may eventually be collected (i.e., landed property), collects from mortgaged property for we hold that surety (i.e., mortgaged property) is a scribal error, if it had not been written in the [loan] document. It is considered as if it was written.

הוציא עליו כתב ידו שהוא חייב לו – and there is no other testimony there.

גובה מנכסים בני חורין – and not mortgaged [property], for since he has no witnesses, it has no voice, and they did not know about him that he had property in order that he had to be careful about.

אחר חיתום שטרות – after the witnesses signed the document, [the guarantor wrote]: “I so-and-so the son of so-and-so is the guarantor.”

גובה מן הערב – from free standing properties alone for since witnesses did not inscribe on the surety/guarantor, it is like a loan by mouth.

אמר ליה בן ננס וכו' – for he holds that every guarantor after the giving of the money is not a guarantor for it wasn’t on the faithfulness of the guarantor and the trust in him that the creditor made the loan to him (i.e., the borrower), and even though Rabbi Yishmael extolled Ben Nanos, the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yishmael for the guarantor after the giving of the money requires an acquisition, and if not, it is not mortgaged, for before the giving of the money, there is no need for an acquisition.