The rabbis hold that a man inherits from his wife, but this is not mentioned explicitly in the Torah, so the Gemara is looking for proof. At the end of yesterday’s daf, the Gemara brought a beraita citing several possible sources: First, the beraita quoted three different verses from the end of Numbers about the requirement of a woman with an inheritance to marry someone of her own tribe, so that the inheritance will not pass to another tribe — seemingly, by virtue of her husband inheriting from her. Second, the beraita quotes a verse from Joshua about the burial of Elazar in his son Pinchas’ land, implying Pinchas owned land that his father did not. How is this possible? Seemingly by virtue of inheriting from his wife. Finally, the beraita quotes a verse from 1 Chronicles implying that a man named Yair owns land and cities that his father did not. How is this possible? Again, apparently because he inherited it from his wife.
The Gemara is, as we might now expect, puzzled by the overabundance of proofs in the beraita. In the eyes of the later rabbis, one verse would have been sufficient to prove that a man inherits from his wife. Why, then, does the beraita bring three separate cases as proof (and, in one of those cases, three discrete verses)? The Gemara responds:
And if you would say that the verse is concerned about a transfer (of inheritance from one tribe to another) by means of the son, but a husband does not inherit from his wife; therefore, come and hear: “So shall no inheritance of the children of Israel transfer from tribe to tribe.” (Numbers 36:7)
If there was only one verse discussing the rule of women marrying within their own tribe and not passing inheritance to a different tribe, one might have thought this refers only to the concern of her son inheriting from her: Since her son follows his father’s tribal affiliation, this would effectively transfer land from one tribe to another. But there are multiple verses discussing this matter and the apparent redundancy teaches that we are also worried about land transferring via a woman’s husband inheriting from her. Further:
And if you would say that this verse is so she will violate for that act a prohibition, namely: “So no inheritance of the children of Israel will transfer,” and a positive mitzvah, namely: “A wife shall be one of the family of the tribe of her father,” therefore, come and hear another verse that is seemingly superfluous: “So no inheritance will transfer from one tribe to another tribe.” (Numbers 36:9)
The Gemara goes on to explain why we need a third verse. If we only had two, I might have thought both were teaching about the instance where a woman’s son inherits from her, and the additional verse comes to add a prohibition. So the beraita brings a third verse to prove that even if the first two were both needed to discuss the case of a son’s inheritance from his mother (and therefore her tribe), there’s still a seemingly superfluous verse from which we can learn that a husband also inherits from his wife.
The Gemara continues in this fashion, explaining why every verse is necessary. This may feel tedious to readers, but let’s keep our eye on the larger project: This is one of many examples where the Gemara dissects a tannaitic source — frequently a beraita — to determine why they’ve brought a seemingly unnecessary number of proofs. The Gemara’s working assumption about tannaitic sources, much like its assumptions about scripture, is that they don’t have superfluous information and therefore they never muster more support than they need. While the Gemara is able to utilize this assumption to frequently draw out even greater layers of meaning, it’s also possible that in its original context the tannaitic source simply sought to gather as many possible textual supports as possible and was simply not concerned about superfluity.
Read all of Bava Batra 112 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on October 15, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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