The Talmud on property as gift vs. inheritance (etc.)

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: An Old Jew Is on His Deathbed, and Says to His Son… In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ what’s right—and what’s legal—in matters of inheritance.

Over the past several weeks, Daf Yomi readers have seen how the Talmud regulates the inheritance of property, building on biblical laws to create a more complex and flexible system. According to the Torah, for example, a man is not free to bequeath his property to whomever he wishes. Rather, inheritance follows an established order, going first to his sons, then his daughters, then his brothers, and finally to more distant male relatives. But as we saw earlier in Tractate Bava Batra, later Jewish law created a workaround, allowing the testator to give his property as a gift, rather than bequeath it as an inheritance. A gift is not subject to the same strict rules.

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But it raises certain complexities ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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