Thursday, January 16, 2014

The Power Of Inheritance

If one says "My property should go to you and after you it shall go to so and so, the law is as follows: If the first recipient is fit to inherit the benefactor and he thus received the award as an inheritance, the second one has no rights to it and after the first reipient dies the inheritance is passed to his heirs and not to the second. The reason is that this award was not made in the language of a gift but of an inheritance and an inheritance can't be interrupted.

Asked Rava "How can we say that an inheritance is not interrupted? The benfactor interrupted it??"

Answered Rav Nachman: The benefactor thought that an inheritance can be interrupted but he was wrong because the Torah says that it cannot. [Bava Basra 133a]  

Explained the Rogochover Gaon: There are two reasons why a person inherits. One is because he is a relative [see Bava Basra 110a]. The other is because the inheritor is כמו עצם המוריש - he is like the essence of the one bequething. Thus, an inheritance is not considered a שינוי רשות - as if it in a different domain, rather it is as if it remained in the original domain. That is why our gemara says ירושה אין לה הפסק - that inheritance doesn't stop.

[עפ"י ההקדמה לס' צפנת פענח על שמות עמ' ט"ו]   

לזכות חנה בת הילה לברכה בכל