Baba Basra 9:7-8

Baba Basra 9:7

Let’s discuss a person who gives away his property orally. Rabbi Eliezer says regarding both a healthy person and a dangerously-ill person that real estate is acquired by money, with a deed, or by taking possession, while movable property is only acquired by drawing it toward oneself. The Sages related a case involving the mother of sons from a man named Rokheil.* She was ill and she said to give her veil worth 1,200 zuz to her daughter. She died and her instructions were carried out. Rabbi Eliezer replied that the mother should have buried her sons (i.e., they were known to be evil. Because of this, the court acted beyond the normal parameters in order to penalize them). The Sages say that a dangerously-ill person’s word are effective on Shabbos because he cannot write but they are not effective on weekdays. Rabbi Yehoshua says that if the Sages said this about Shabbos, it’s all the more true on weekdays. Similarly, a person can acquire property for a minor but not for an adult; Rabbi Yehoshua says that if the Sages said this regarding a minor, it’s all the more true regarding an adult.

*We usually eschew the transliteration kh but we felt the need to differentiate this man’s name, which is written with a chaf, from the women’s name Rochel, which is written with a ches.

Baba Basra 9:8

Let's say that a house fell on a man and his father, or on a man and his heirs, and the man had to pay both the value of his wife’s kesubah and a creditor. The father’s heirs say that the son died first, then the father (so they should inherit the estate) but the creditors say the father died first, then the son (so they should be paid). Beis Shammai say the parties should share the estate but Beis Hillel say that the estate remains with its presumptive owners (i.e., the heirs).