Get (divorce document)

A get or gett (/ɡɛt/; Hebrew: גט‎‎, plural gittin גיטין) is a divorce document in Jewish religious law, which must be presented by a husband to his wife to affect their divorce. The essential part of the get is very short: the text is "You are hereby permitted to all men", which means that the woman is no longer married and that the laws of adultery no longer apply. The get also returns to the wife the legal rights that a husband holds in regard to her in a Jewish marriage.

The biblical term for the divorce document, described in Deuteronomy 24, is "Sefer Keritut", (Hebrew: ספר כריתת‎‎). The word get may have its origins in the Sumerian word for document, GID.DA. It appears to have passed from Sumerian into Akkadian as gittu, and from there into Mishnaic Hebrew. In fact in the Mishnah, get can refer to any legal document although it refers primarily to a divorce document. (Tosefet Beracha to Ki Tisa)

A number of popular etymological speculations were offered by early modern Rabbinic authorities. According to Shiltei Giborim (mentioned in the talmudic dictionary Aruch HaShalem S.V. Get), it refers to the stone agate, which purportedly has some form of anti-magnetic property symbolizing the divorce. The Gaon of Vilna posits that the Hebrew letters of Gimel and Tet of the word get are the only letters of the Hebrew alphabet that cannot make a word together, again symbolizing the divorce. Rabbi Baruch Epstein states that it comes from the Latin word gestus "action, gesture", which refers to any legal document. Marcus Jastrow posits a Semitic root, arguing that it derives from the Hebrew word for engraving (Hebrew: חטט‎‎).

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