About this episode
Today's daf is sponsored by Glenda Sacks Jaffe in honor of Sari Esserman's birthday and on her first grandchild, and to Rhona Fink on the birth of another grandchild. " Yom huledet sameach and mazal tov !" Does the firstborn receive a double portion of a loan due back to his father after his death? Raba and Rav Nachman each hold that the firstborn can receive a double portion but only if it is paid back in land, according to Raba or in cash according to Rav Nachman. Abaye raises two difficulties against each of their positions. Firstly, he sees no reason to distinguish - if the money "(or land) is not considered in the possession of the father, then the land (or money) should not be either. Secondly, he quotes a case for each of them where they held differently than they do here. Raba responds for himself and for Rav Nachman, claiming that they were both explaining the positions of the rabbis in Israel, but they do not actually agree with that position. The difficulty raised against Raba was from a case where a person on their deathbed gave all their property to their grandmother, to be then given to his heirs (which was his daughter) upon the grandmother's death. However, the daughter died before the grandmother. When the grandmother died, the daughter's husband claimed the property as the heir of the daughter. The rabbis in Israel ruled that the property was not in the daughter's possession at the time of her death and the husband could not inherit the property, as a husband inherits land/items of his wife that were in her possession at the time of her death. Rav Huna held that the husband could inherit it as when the father promised the property to the daughter after it first went to the grandmother, it was as if he said, "It will be yours from now, but the grandmother will enjoy the proceeds until her death." Raba sided with the rabbis in Israel as he claimed that it clearly belonged to the grandmother since if she were to sell it, the sale would be valid, thus proving that it was considered in her possession, not the daughter's, until her death. This shows that Raba holds that land/items are not considered possessed by someone ( muchzak ) if another person can sell them. Rav Pappa ruled: 1. a husband only inherits property that the wife possessed, not property due to her; 2. A firstborn only inherits the double portion of property that his father possessed, not property due to him; 3. A firstborn does not get a double portion of a loan due to his father, whether they collected land or money for the loan; 4. A loan that the firstborn borrowed from his father and did not repay until after the father's death is a case of doubt whether it is considered due to the father or in his possession and therefore the double portion is split between him and the brothers.