Gittin, Chapter 8, Mishnah 7. This Mishnah also deals with a get written in two columns, but unlike the previous Mishnah, which discussed two separate gittin, here we are dealing with a single get written in two columns: it begins in the right-hand column and continues in the left-hand column, with the witnesses signed at the bottom of the left-hand column.
One get written in two columns:
The Mishnah teaches: "Shiyer miktzas ha'get u'chesavo ba'daf ha'sheini, ve'ha'eidim mi'lematan - kasher" - that is, if he left over part of the get and wrote it in the second column, and the witnesses are signed below, at the bottom of the second column, the get is valid.
This ruling, however, must be understood as referring to a case in which there are sufficient margins around the get, so that it is evident that we are not looking at two separate gittin that were cut apart, and that nothing else was written at the top of one of the columns and then cut off from it. Where there are no genuine margins there would indeed be room for such a concern, but when margins surround the document, it is clear that the whole of it is a single get.
The placement of the signatures on the get:
From here the Mishnah turns to discuss a get whose signatures are not in their usual place at the bottom. Three cases are listed:
"Chasmu ha'eidim be'rosh ha'daf" - the witnesses signed at the top of the get rather than beneath it.
"Min ha'tzad" - the witnesses signed on the side of the get.
"O me'achorav be'get pashut" - the witnesses signed on the back of the get, on its reverse side, in a plain, ordinary get, as opposed to a tied get.
In all of these cases the get is invalid.
A tied get is the type of get that the kohanim would use: they would write a line or two, fold it over, and sign on the reverse side. The enactment of Chazal is that in a tied get the witnesses sign on the back, but in a plain get the signatures must be on the front side, directly beneath the writing, and if they are not, the get is not valid.
Two gittin written on one sheet:
Their tops facing each other: "Hikif rasheihen zeh ba'zeh ve'ha'eidim ba'emtza - shneihen pesulin" - two gittin are written on one piece of paper, the top of one adjacent to the top of the other, each written in the opposite direction, so that in order to read the second one the sheet must be turned around. The witnesses are signed in the middle, that is, at the top of both gittin, and therefore both are invalid, since the witnesses must sign at the end of a get.
Their bottoms facing each other: the bottoms of the two gittin face one another and the witnesses are in the middle. In this arrangement, for one get the signatures follow it in proper order and in the same direction in which it was written, and that get is valid. For the second get, however, the signatures appear in the direction opposite to the direction of its writing - the bottom of the letters of the signatures faces the bottom of the writing of the get - and that get is invalid.
Both in the same direction, one above the other: all the writing faces one direction, except that one get is written above the other, and the witnesses are in the middle. The upper get, at whose end the witnesses are signed, is valid; the lower get, above which the witnesses are signed, is invalid.
In summary: in this Mishnah we learned that a single get written in two columns with the witnesses signed at the bottom of the second column is valid, provided that the margins demonstrate that these are not two gittin that were cut apart. We further learned that in a plain get the signatures must be on the front side beneath the writing, whereas signing at the top of the sheet, on the side, or on the back invalidates it. Finally, we examined the three arrangements of two gittin written on one sheet with the witnesses in the middle, in which the rule is that only the get at whose end the witnesses are read, and in the direction of its writing, is valid.