At the end of yesterday’s daf we began a new chapter which begins by examining how different children are sustained from a deceased’s property. The mishnah states:
One who died and left behind both sons and daughters: When the estate is large, the sons inherit the estate and the daughters are provided with sustenance. When the estate is small, the daughters are provided with sustenance. And if the sons (cannot support themselves), they go and request charity at the doors.
Though sons take priority for inheritance over daughters (who only inherit in the absence of sons), daughters are still supported until adulthood from their late father’s estate. And that need for support can override the sons’ right to inherit. So, for a small estate, it may be that the daughters are supported until they reach adulthood or marry (with property handled by a guardian) while the sons get nothing or very little. In that case, if the sons have no other livelihood to fall back on, their only recourse is to seek support from charity. Whereas if the estate is “large,” i.e. has sufficient value to support both the sons and daughters until they reach adulthood, the sons inherit all of it and provide for their sisters from the property.
Given this sharp binary in how the sons inherit, the Gemara tackles the question of how we know whether an estate is large or small, starting with the question of whether we subtract the value of the widow’s sustenance (which she is owed from her husband’s heirs) from the overall value of the estate:
Rabbi Yirmeya was sitting before Rabbi Abbahu and raised the following dilemma before him: What is the halakhah with regard to a widow? Does her sustenance reduce the value of the estate? Do we say that since she has a right to receive sustenance, it reduces? Or perhaps we say that since if she remarries she does not have a right, now as well, she is considered as if she does not have a right to sustenance.
On the one hand, since sustaining the widow is a fixed obligation, it would make sense to factor these expenditures in when calculating what value of the estate will remain to pay for the children’s sustenance and inheritance. On the other hand, at any point the widow might remarry and thereby forfeit her right to sustenance which means her ketubah payment isn’t guaranteed to continue indefinitely, so perhaps it should not be factored into the calculation of the estate’s size.
Without definitively answering Rabbi Yirmeya’s question, the Gemara builds on it:
And if you say that since if she remarries she does not have a right to sustenance, now as well she is considered as if she does not have it (when calculating the estate’s value): What is the halakhah with regard to the daughter of his wife (from a previous marriage)? Does it reduce the value of the estate? Do we say that since, when she marries she also has a right to sustenance, it reduces the value of the estate? Or perhaps we say that since, if she dies she does not have a right to sustenance, it does not reduce the value of the estate.
The Gemara employs an im timtzei lomar, an “if you were to say” format, in which we show that one answer to an unresolved question elicits another question. Even if we were to say the money needed to sustain a widow doesn’t factor into our calculations of the estate size, how would we rule on the case of a step-daughter, whom the deceased stipulated to support even after she marries? Since she’ll be supported for the rest of her life, this is a very stable commitment of value, and perhaps should be factored in; however, since (like all of us) she might die at any point and we therefore don’t know how many years she’ll be sustained, perhaps this still doesn’t impact our calculation of the estate’s value.
The Gemara builds the question out even further:
And if you say that since, if she dies she does not have a right (to post-mortem sustenance), therefore it does not reduce the value of the estate, what is the halakhah with regard to a creditor? Does it reduce the value of the estate? Do we say that since, when the creditor dies he also has a right to the money, therefore it reduces the value of the estate? Or perhaps we say that since it has not yet been collected, it does not reduce the value of the estate.
The most extreme example is a creditor because his claim on the estate extends beyond the grave: His heirs have a right to collect the debt. On the one hand, this is money we can guarantee will be taken out of the estate, so if anything were to factor into our calculation of the estate’s value, it would be this. On the other hand, perhaps the better course, in determining the value of the estate, is not to factor in monetary commitments and liens, and consider only the current value of the property. The argument here, which is at least simple, is this: The value of the estate is exactly what it was worth at the moment the owner passed away.
These questions have real bearings on how often we find ourselves in the different scenarios laid out in the mishnah. The fewer debts and obligations that are factored into (and thus reduce) calculation of the estate’s value, the more likely that sons will inherit all of the property and then sustain their sisters from it. The more debts we take into account, the greater the likelihood that a guardian will be in charge of overseeing the daughters’ sustenance, and the sons will have a reduced inheritance, perhaps needing to beg for their own support. The details are tricky, but they’re important because the stakes are so high.
Read all of Bava Batra 140 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 12, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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