Yevamot 38 - April 14, 13 Nissan

Today’s daf is sponsored by Elisa Hartstein in honor of her oldest daughter finishing her army service today "also in tremendous appreciation for all of our Chayalot and Chayalim, present and past, who make our lives here in Israel possible every single day." Today's daf is sponsored by Mona & David Schwartz and family in loving memory of Mary Horowitz, Miriam Etel bat Aharon Halevi & Mirel Meltzer on her 28th yahrzeit. "She was a woman whose home exemplified hachanasat orchim".  Today's daf is sponsored by Medinah Korn in loving memory of her maternal grandmother, Betty Egert Landesman, Baila Toibe bat Avraham Aryeh ve-Tsirel Devorah, and her paternal grandfather, Jacob Katchen, Yaakov ben Meyer Zev ve-Malka Rashe, on their 40th yahrzeit. "Though we lost them too soon, and did not have an official shiva period that snowy Erev Pesach in 1982, their legacy of the centrality of family, commitment to community, tradition, and so much more, has stayed with us all these years. Yehi zichram baruch."  In a case where the child was potentially born to the first husband or to the yabam (if yibum was performed within three months of the death and she was pregnant soon after), in what cases can the child inherit from one father or the other or the grandfather? Mostly his claims are unsubstantiated, however, in cases where he has a definitive claim, he can collect. When a woman is waiting for yibum, what is the status of her property? Beit Shamai and Beit Hillel agree that she can sell her property at her will as her potential yabam has no rights to her possessions. But if she dies, they disagree about who inherits her property – does it go back to her family or does it go to the yabam? Four different explanations are brought to explain the Mishna and the difference between the two parts of the Mishna – why do they both agree about the first case that the woman has clear rights to the property, but disagree about the second? According to Ulla, they are each referring to a different situation – the first part is a woman who was only engaged to the man who died and the second part is one who is married. Her relationship to the yabam in the first part is considered safek (a case of doubt) engaged to her and in the second part, safek married. According to Raba, in both cases she was married; the difference is that in the first part she was still alive, in which case her claim to the property is stronger than in the second part when she is no longer alive and the people claiming rights to it each don’t have a clear claim to the property (even though the yabam is the one with a better claim on it as it is in his possession). Therefore, in the second part, Beit Shamai rules that they split the property. Abaye questions Raba - does Beit Shamai really hold that in a case where one has a definitive claim and the other’s claim is not definitive (safek), does the one with a definitive claim have full rights to the object in question? This question is strengthened by a Mishna in Bava Batra 157 regarding a house that falls and kills a man and his father, and it is unclear who died first and a dispute ensues between the heirs of the son and those to who he owes money. Beit Shamai rules that they split it. Why wouldn’t the heirs be considered as if they have a definitive claim while the creditors do not? Beit Shamai gives them rights to it for a different reason, which is proven by laws of a Sotah whose husband dies before drinking the Sotah waters. Beit Shamai rules that she can collect her ketuba even though she does not have a definitive claim. It seems it can be collected because a document that is ready to be collected is considered as if it is already collected. Why didn’t Abaye question Raba from the Sotah case? Perhaps a ketuba is different as it was instituted to protect the women in order to encourage them to get married and therefore it is able to be collected even without a definitive claim. Why didn’t Abaye question Raba from the ketuba in our Mishna where the woman’s family has a non-definitive claim to her money while the yabam has a definitive claim (as the property is in his possession) and yet they split the proceeds according to Beit Shamai? To answer that question, they reread the Mishna and claim that Beit Shamai wasn’t relating to that case.  Abaye brings a third explanation of the two parts of the Mishna by distinguishing between when the property came to the woman. The first part is referring to property given to her when she was waiting for yibum, therefore the yabam has no claim to the property. The second was property that was given to her when she was married to the first husband, which would then go by default to the yabam upon the husband’s death.