רבי יוחנן בן גודגדא

Rabbi Yochanan ben Gudgeda was a tanna active in Judaea. He is best known for a set of testimonies recorded in his name, which serve as anchors for later halachic discussion. In Yevamot and Gittin he testifies that a deaf-mute woman whom her father married off may be released through a get, and that a minor daughter of an Israelite who married a kohen may eat terumah — a pairing the Gemara examines to explain why the deaf-mute woman does not likewise eat terumah.

His testimony also became the basis for a broader principle in the laws of divorce. Rava builds on it to rule that even where a husband instructs witnesses to observe the get he is giving and tells the woman to take “this document of debt,” she is divorced — for, as Rabbi Yochanan ben Gudgeda holds, we do not require her consent or awareness for the divorce to take effect. His words appear in tractates Gittin and Yevamot, where the Sages engage with and qualify his rulings.