Disinheritance as punishment is great fodder for television. We can easily imagine a disgruntled patriarch castigating their recalcitrant offspring: “That’s it, I’m taking you out of my will!” But is this post-mortem punishment recommended in real life? A mishnah on today’s daf considers:
One who wrote a document granting his property to others as a gift and left his sons with nothing: What he did is done, but the sages are displeased with him.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: If he did so because his sons were not acting properly, he is remembered positively.
As we have learned, although the Torah prescribes a specific order of inheritance, rabbinic law allows a person to circumvent it by gifting their property to whomever they please. Our mishnah suggests that even if a person is motivated by disdain or vengeance, the gift is legal, but the rabbis frown upon it. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, however, suggests that if the sons have done something to deserve the punishment, it is the right thing to do.
Is Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel correct? Shmuel didn’t think so. Perhaps in an effort to discourage parents from angrily disinheriting their offspring, the Gemara records that Shmuel advised Rav Yehuda against visiting houses in which this had happened, even when the wealth was transferred from a wicked child to a good one.
We have clearly entered territory that is murky and, in some cases, beyond legal remedy (which is why Shmuel recommends employing social pressure). The Gemara cites a beraita that offers an account of how this once shook out:
The sages taught: There was an incident involving one man whose children did not act properly. He arose and wrote a document transferring all of his property to Yonatan ben Uzziel. What did Yonatan ben Uzziel do? He sold a third of the property for his needs, consecrated a third of the property and returned the remaining third to the man’s children.
Yonatan ben Uzziel receives an inheritance that would have gone to an unnamed man’s children. Yonatan keeps a third of the gift for himself, but he also donates a third to the Temple and, crucially, returns a third to the original heirs. Was he right to return the property to the original heirs? Or was it wrong for him to circumvent the intention of his benefactor? The Talmud tells us that Shammai arrives on the scene to chastise Yonatan:
Shammai came to Yonatan ben Uzziel with his staff and traveling bag.
Yonatan ben Uzziel said to him: Shammai, if you can repossess the property that I sold from the purchasers and the property that I consecrated from the Temple treasury, you can repossess what I returned to the man’s children as well; but if not, you cannot repossess what I returned to the man’s children either.
Yonatan ben Uzziel tells Shammai he is out of line, giving a solid legal argument: If the property has been given to him as a gift, it is his to do with as he wishes, whether that be using it to support himself, donating it to a communal institution or giving it to others. The property Yonatan sold to a stranger cannot be recouped, nor can the property he donated to the Temple, so it stands to reason that the property he gifted back to the original heirs cannot be seized from them. Shammai accepts this argument:
Ben Uzziel has reprimanded me.
Rather than frowning on the father like the sages of the mishnah do, Shammai (like Rabban Gamliel) supports the father’s decision to disinherit his children — so much so that he directs his dissatisfaction towards Yonatan ben Uzziel for returning part of the inheritance. But, as Yonatan reminds Shammai, just as a father is free to transfer his property to whomever he chooses, the recipient is free to do what he pleases with that gift.
The story addresses the legalities of the wealth transfer, but doesn’t solve the moral conundrum. Is it OK for a parent to disinherit a child in anger? Legally, we have learned, it’s possible. And legally it’s also possible for the new benefactor to give it a back to the original heirs. But whether any of that is advisable remains a matter of debate.
Read all of Bava Batra 133 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 5, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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