document

Distinctions

Gett (גט)

Technically any document. Gett ishah, a "woman's gett," is a writ of divorce; gett shichrur, a "gett of freedom," a slave's writ of emancipation; gett chov, an "obligatory gett," an IOU (Gittin 10a; Bava Kamma 95a; Bava Basra 160a). Rashi (Gittin 65b) and Rambam (Commentary to the Mishnah, Gittin 2:5) record that the default gett in colloquial terms is a bill of divorce. Rabbi Yisrael Yaakov Algazi adds, as an aside, that every shtar can also be called a gett but not every gett a shtar, and rules from that principle that communal enactments explicitly said to govern a shtar do not apply to a gett. Why this word, and why for divorce, is the subject of a long disagreement.

• Twelve lines. Tosafos (Gittin 2a) cite Rabbeinu Tam that a gett carries twelve lines because the gematria of גט is twelve. The Maharsha, Maharam Shiff, and Elyah Rabbah read Tosafos as explaining the name as well; the Tosafos Yom Tov objects that this reads more into Tosafos than the words bear (see Rabbi David Tzvi Fetene, Maharsha HaAruch, who answers him). Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Sefer HaTishbi) raises two objections of his own: other documents are called a gett without the twelve-line requirement, and other two-letter pairs also total twelve (דח, הז, טג).
• Letters that never touch. Rabbi Chaim of Friedburg (Sefer HaChaim), brother of the Maharal, is the earliest known source: Hashem so dislikes divorce that He kept gimmel and tes from ever standing in that order anywhere in Tanach. Rabbi Algazi heard the same, tying it to divorce as separation, and the Vilna Gaon (Divrei Eliyahu) says the like. Rabbi Meir Mazuz sharpens it: other never-adjacent pairs (גק, סצ) are letters from the same organ of speech and hard to pronounce, while gimmel and tes come from different organs yet still never stand in that order, and they are the earliest incompatible pair in alphabetical order. Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky (Taama DeKra to Devarim 24:1) offers that last point too. The pair does occur across a word boundary at Yechezkel 22:25; see Rabbi Aryeh Leib Tzintz's introduction to Seder HaGett.
• The stone. Rabbi Yehoshua Boaz (Shiltei HaGibborim on Mordechai, Gittin 1) cites a Midrash no longer extant about a gem called getta that repels people, fitting a document by which a couple push one another away. The Chasam Sofer knows a version in which the stone attracts, and settles it from the other Shiltei HaGibborim (Rabbi Avraham the Physician of Portaleone) on the stone "gagate" that is said to draw straw when rubbed. On that reading every document is a gett because it binds parties together, and the divorce sense is the harder one, which is why the twelve-line explanation was needed.
• Cutting or erasing. Tosafos Chachmei Anglia (Gittin 2a), Orchos Chaim (Hilchos Gittin), Kolbo 76, the glosses to Rabbi Yaakov Margolis's Seder HaGett, and the Levush (Even HaEzer 125:11) all take gett as an expression of breaking or cutting, matching the biblical sefer kerisus, and cite a lost Yerushalmi that uses it so. Rabbi Shlomo Aharon Wertheimer similarly suggests it is an expression of erasure (compare Rashi to Berachos 56a).
• Akkadian. Despite all of these explanations, the scholarly consensus is that the Mishnaic Hebrew gett is a loanword from the Akkadian gittu, "a (single-column) document."

On the word ghetto, the section of Rome to which the Jews were confined, the late Rabbi Eliezer Herstik wrote that some explain it derives from gett, in the sense of "chased away." Three other theories stand beside it: that ghetto comes from the Italian borghetto, "small part of a city," from the Germanic burg, "fortress, city, town," the equivalent of English "borough" and the Old English suffix -bury; that it comes from the Venetian getto, "metal foundry," there having been such a factory near the Jewish ghetto in Venice; and that it comes from the Latin Aegyptus, Egypt, where the Jews were first ghettoized in exile and slavery in biblical times.

Shtar (שטר)

Root ש-ט-ר. Absent from Tanach but quite common in later rabbinic literature, including the Bar Kochba Letters and the Mishnah, and often specified by its type: shtar chov, shtar erusin (Kesubos 102b; Kiddushin 9b), shtar nisuin and shtar arisus (Bava Basra 167b), shtar amanah (Kesubos 19a; Gittin 19b; Bava Basra 49a, 154b), shtar berurin (Moed Katan 18b), shtar mivrachas (Kesubos 79a). Ritva distinguishes a shtar from an iggeret: a shtar is written with the intention that it last a long time (ostensibly so as to serve as evidence of the transaction or event it records), while an iggeret is not intended as long-term documentation. Whether it is the same root as shoter, the officer, is disputed.

• Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur (Meturgeman) gives ש-ט-ר two separate entries, the enforcing officer and the document, and treats the two senses as separate.
• Rav Hirsch (to Shemos 5:6) joins them: a shtar is the creditor's best means of presenting his grievances and enforcing his dues, so both words off ש-ט-ר are related.
• Dr. Chaim Tawil defines the biblical shoter as a "record-keeper" or "organizing officer" and connects the root to the Akkadian verb sataru, "to write"; on his account both shoter and sofer mean a scribe in Akkadian, the former specifically a civil servant who is an official scribe, the latter any scribe at all.

The Old English starr is a corruption of shtar and referred to documents or contracts held by Jews, falling out of use after the expulsion from England in 1290 until later scholars such as the English parliamentarian John Selden revived it.

The Talmud has two more words for a document. The Yerushalmi (end of Kesubos ch. 9) has kartis, a card: one who lost his kartis writes another. The Ramban (to Kesubos 89) notes that in Arabic and in la'az it is karta. And the Bavli several times has diska (so it is usually spelled) for a document, probably the Middle Persian desag, "form, shape," though Middle Persian has not yet shown that word in the technical sense of an official document (Dr. Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, p. 330).

The biblical words

Tanach has neither term. A bill of divorce is sefer kerisus, literally a "Scroll of Cutting" (Devarim 24:1-3; Yeshayahu 50:1). A deed of purchase is sefer hamiknah, a "Scroll of Acquisition," five times in Yirmiyahu 32, the standard, or the only, biblical word for a document of sale.

In the Hebrew of Tanach, sefer stands for both get and shtar: Devarim 24:1-2 says sefer for what the Mishnah (Kiddushin 1:1) calls a get, and Yirmiyahu 32:11 and 32:44 say sefer for what the Mishnah (Kiddushin 1:5) calls a shtar.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Divorce Bills and Other Documents," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 16 May 2020.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Between Books and Scrolls," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 19 February 2022.

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Divorce Bills and other Documents," What's in a Word? Synonyms in the Hebrew Language (book manuscript).

Cited in the essay: Devarim 24:1-3; Yeshayahu 50:1; Yirmiyahu 32; Yechezkel 22:25; Shemos 5:6; Gittin 2a, 10a, 19b, 65b; Bava Kamma 95a; Bava Basra 49a, 154b, 160a, 167b; Kesubos 19a, 79a, 102b; Kiddushin 9b; Moed Katan 18b; Berachos 56a; Mishnah Gittin 2:5 with Rambam; Sefer HaChaim; Sefer HaTishbi; Meturgeman; Divrei Eliyahu; Taama DeKra to Devarim 24:1; Levush, Even HaEzer 125:11; Kolbo 76; Dr. Chaim Tawil; Rabbi Eliezer Herstik; Ritva; Devarim 24:1-2; Yirmiyahu 32:11, 32:44; Kiddushin 1:1, 1:5; Yerushalmi Kesubos, end of ch. 9; Ramban to Kesubos 89; Dr. Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, p. 330.