Resources for Kesubos 91

1.     The גמרא says that if someone takes property from an יתום’s estate as a partial payment of a loan and the orphan comes to buy it back but doesn’t say that that is what he’s doing then we assume he is actually coming to pay off the balance of the debt because there is a מצוה על היתומים לפרוע חוב אביהם. רש"י explains that the basis of this מצוה is כיבוד אב but its not a real מצוה מפורשת that ב"ד could be כופה on. Rather its is a "מצוה בעלמא דרבנן". Those last words are unclear. תוספות earlier on דף פּ"ו ע"א ד"ה פּריעת understood רש"י to mean that we are never כופה on a מצוה דרבנן. תוספות disagrees with this since we find that we are כופה יורשים to be מקיים דברי המת even though it is just a מצוה דרבנן. The פּני יהושע on our דף says that רש"י didn’t mean to say we are never כופה on a מצוה דרבנן. Rather, רש"י meant that in our case it says מצוה על היתומים  and not חיוב which means in this particular case you cant be כופה. The reason for this is that when חז"ל made the original תקנה they didn’t intend it to be one that we are כופה on. He does not explain why they made it that way. Perhaps he means that רש"י was saying that while repaying your father’s loan is certainly in the realm of the torah concept of כיבוד אב, it isn’t considered a מצוה מפורשת like מאכילו ומשקיהו and חז"ל just mentioned it was a מצוה  but it was never meant to be a חיוב ממש. There is an interesting ערוך לנר in ר"ה דף כ"ח ע"ב דּח שכפאוהו who brings a יום תרועה that says that when you are כופה someone to do a מצוה they are יוצא even though they surely did not have כוונה לצאת since the מכה provides the כוונה לצאת. The ערוך לנר himself disagrees with this and say you certainly aren’t יוצא and the גמרא on דף פּ"ו that says כופין על מצות סוכה ולולב is only talking about the הכשר מצוה of building the סוכה or putting together the לולב. His proof is from the fact that you cant be כופה the person to take a לולב on יו"ט itself since its considered an עונש which we don’t do on יו"ט and it cant be חול המועד since that is only דרבנן (presumably based on the simple reading of רש"י that you cant be כופה on a מצוה דרבנן). The ערוך לנר does not ask from the fact that you can force the a person to repay a loan. Perhaps it is because you don’t need כוונה to be יוצא a מצוה of בין אדם לחבירו. This is a יסוד said by the אמרי בינה and a proof is the fact that we know if someone drops a dollar by accident and its picked up by a poor person the person gets שכר. We see you don’t need כוונה for a מצוה של בין אדם לחברו.

2.     The משנה says that the יתומים can’t overvalue the inheritance so that there is a מותר דינר. The הפלאה asks that why wouldn’t that be a case of מועטין ונתרבו which we say does not count anyway?! The חכמת שלמה in אבן העזר סימן קי"א adds to the question: since the משנה of overvaluing is a case of מועטין ונתרבו, why not just say that and it would include cases where it was really מועטין ונתרבו which we say also doesn’t count? He answers with a big חידוש: anything that we expect to increase in value ממילא like a fruit tree that is in process of growing fruit is not subject to the limitation of מועטין ונתרבו and is considered here at the time of death and would be considered a מותר דינר. Therefore, the משנה needed to teach you that even though if there isn’t a מותר דינר we would expect it increase in value via the brothers who will overvalue it to give it a מותר דינר, it still doesn’t work since overvaluing doesn’t count.

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