Weekly DAFootnotes Bava Batra 65-71 Issue #44 14-20 Sivan, 5762 / May 25-31, 2002 By Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean, Ohr Somayach Institutions ===================================== Sponsored by Kof-K www.kof-k.com | info@kof-k.com ===================================== FATHERS AND SONS "In place of your fathers shall be your sons." (Tehillim 45:17) In his commentary on this passage Metsudot writes that it is a reference to the redeemer Mashiach who is the subject of that entire psalm. Just as Mashiach (literally the anointed king) will attain his royal position because he is a descendant of King David, so too will his own descendants inherit the throne from him. Our gemara and a later one view this as a description of all generational relationships, and apply this passage to financial issues. In regard to brothers who have divided their inheritance there is a question as to whether they ceded each property in a generous or parsimonious fashion. The classic example is that of two adjoining fields which are of equal size but there is no access to the inner field except through the outer one. The son who receives the inner field as his inheritance claims the right to pass though the outer field in the same manner that his father did. His brother's counter-claim is that since division of inheritance is considered like sale of property, and when one sells his property to another he does so in generous fashion without retaining rights of passage, he does not have to grant his brother access to his inner field unless his brother pays for this privilege. Whether, generally speaking, a seller indeed transfers ownership of his property in such a generous way or parsimoniously retains some of his previous rights in it is a matter of dispute between the Sages Rav and Shmuel. In this particular case, however, Rav's position that the owner of the inner field retains the right of passage which his father had is bolstered by the concept expressed in the above passage of children taking the place of their parents and functioning in the fields they inherited with the same rights that their fathers enjoyed. A later gemara (Bava Batra 159a) bases an interesting ruling on a different interpretation of this passage. The case in question involved the sale of property belonging to Yaakov by his son Reuven while Yaakov was still alive. Reuven died and then his father died. Reuven's son Chanoch then approached the people who purchased his grandfather's property from his father and demanded that they return it to him because Reuven was not empowered to sell Yaakov's property before actually inheriting it. To the argument of these purchasers that it is absurd for Chanoch, whose only right to this property is based on his inheriting his father, to challenge a sale made by the father, the rejoinder is that he is not inheriting this property from his father but rather from his grandfather who never relinquished ownership of it. As proof that there is such a direct inheritance from grandfather to grandson when the father died before the grandfather, the above passage is cited. Since it does not say that "in your place shall be your sons" but rather that "in place of your fathers shall be your sons" the indication is that one's son can take the place of one's father — that a grandson can inherit directly from his grandfather. Bava Batra 65a ===================================== THE GROUNDED HONEYCOMB What is the connection between bee honey and a forest? In a major battle with his perennial enemies, the Philistines, King Saul was on the verge of a major victory and therefore made his entire army take an oath not to partake of any food until evening so that they could succeed in completely routing the enemy. The king's son, Yonatan, had been separated from the main force on a mission, unknown to his father, to conquer an important Philistine outpost. Upon his return from the triumph, he entered the forest where he rejoined the army of his father. Honey was in abundance in that forest but no one dared partake of it because of the oath imposed on them by the king. Unaware of this oath because of his absence when it was declared, Yonatan took his staff "and dipped it into the forest of honey." (Shmuel II 14:27) Rabbi Elazar saw in this passage combining the terms forest and honey an indication that one who removes honey from its source on Shabbat is guilty of violating the sanctity of the Day of Rest in the same manner as one who picks a branch or a fruit from a tree in the forest. Although the honey in the incident of Yonatan was not bee honey but rather the honey found in canes (honey canes grew in Eretz Yisrael — Rashi on Shmuel), Rabbi Elazar deduced from this passage that removing honey from its natural source is equivalent to picking from something growing in the earth. He therefore extends this concept to a honeycomb which is the natural source of the bee honey and considers one who removes honey from it as a Shabbat violator. But it is not only in regard to Shabbat that Rabbi Elazar considers a honeycomb like something growing from the earth. Regarding the type of kinyan (an action necessary to consummate a transaction) needed for acquiring a honeycomb, he also considers it as being real estate rather than movable property. This is in contrast to the other sages who view a honeycomb as any other movable object in regard to Shabbat, kinyan and all other matters of halacha where there is a distinction between something movable and something connected to the earth. Bava Batra 66a ===================================== If you like this e-mail please share it with a friend. ===================================== To subscribe to this list please e-mail DafYomi-subscribe@ohr.edu To unsubscribe e-mail DafYomi-unsubscribe@ohr.edu Weekly DAFootnotes is now available as part of the Ohr Somayach Interactive AvantGo channel! See www.ohr.edu for details. ===================================== (C) 2002 Ohr Somayach International - All rights reserved.