We are beginning the eighth chapter of tractate Bava Basra - the chapter of "Yesh Nochalim", a famous chapter dealing with the laws of nachalah, which are the laws of inheritance. The central question is: when a person passes away, who becomes the legal owner of his estate. The Mishnah is somewhat complex, and therefore we will first present the fundamental rules that guide the division of inheritance, and only afterwards will we approach the language of the Mishnah itself. The basic rules can be summarized in five principles.
The five fundamental rules of inheritance laws:
Order of closeness: The natural heir of the deceased is his descendants - his sons, daughters, and grandchildren. In the absence of descendants, the inheritance passes to the father of the deceased. If the father is not alive, the process is repeated and the other descendants of the father are checked, namely the brothers and sisters of the deceased, as well as his nephews and nieces. In the absence of these, we go up another generation to his father's father, and if he too is not alive - his descendants are sought, such as uncles and cousins. And so on, generation after generation, until an heir is found. It emerges that every Jew has heirs in the family tree, and the question is only how far the search must be extended.
Precedence of males: When there are several heirs equally close to the bequeather, the males take precedence over the females. If a person had a son and a daughter - the son inherits and not the daughter; if he had two sons and two daughters - the sons inherit and the daughters do not inherit. In the absence of sons, the daughters inherit, whether there are two of them or one. This rule applies across all generations: if there are no descendants at all and we move to the descendants of the father, the brothers of the deceased inherit and not his sisters, and only in the absence of brothers do the sisters inherit.
Descendants take the place of their parents: Surviving descendants step into the shoes of their deceased parents. For example: the deceased had a son and a daughter, the son had a daughter and the daughter had a son, and all the children passed away in their father's lifetime. At the time of passing, therefore, only two grandchildren remained. The granddaughter takes the place of her father, and the grandson takes the place of his mother. Since the son takes precedence over the daughter, the granddaughter is the heir - since she comes in place of the son.
Closeness is counted from the father's side: All calculations of closeness are made through the father's side in the family tree and not through the mother's side. For example: a person who passed away without descendants and his father is not alive - his brothers are entitled to his inheritance and share it equally, and anyone who is the son of his father is considered a brother, whether a full brother or a half-brother from the father's side. Conversely, a half-brother from the mother's side only - where they have a common mother and not a common father - is not considered a brother at all and does not inherit. There are two exceptions to this rule:
A husband inherits from his wife: A woman's primary heir is her husband, regardless of her father's family tree and regardless of her descendants. A woman who passed away while married - her husband inherits from her.
A son inherits from his mother: Although we always follow the father's family tree, a woman who has no husband and has children - they inherit from her, and thus the son inherits from his mother on her side.
Equal division: When there are several heirs equally close to the bequeather, they share it equally among themselves.
A summarizing example:
The deceased had three children: Sarah the daughter, Reuven the first son, and Shimon the second son. Reuven had a daughter named Rachel, who is the deceased's granddaughter. Let us assume that Reuven passed away during his father's lifetime, so it emerges that at the time of passing there were three descendants remaining: Sarah the daughter, Rachel the granddaughter, and Shimon the son. Who inherits? (It is fitting to pause here and try to resolve the halachah on our own.)
The answer is that Rachel the granddaughter and Shimon the son inherit equally, while Sarah does not take anything. The reason: the living descendants step into the shoes of their deceased parents, and therefore Rachel takes the place of her father Reuven. Since sons take precedence over daughters, Reuven and Shimon would have shared half and half, and Reuven's portion passes to his daughter Rachel. It turns out that Rachel takes half, Shimon takes half, and Sarah takes nothing.
With the help of these rules, we can understand most of the cases in the Mishnah and Gemara, and we will see the details more broadly as we proceed. It is fitting to add that all of these laws are based on verses and on the expositions of the Sages upon them - in the portion of the daughters of Tzelofchad in the book of Bamidbar, chapter 27, starting from verse 8. Now we will approach the language of the Mishnah.
The four types of relationships in the Mishnah:
The Mishnah lists four types of family relationships. "Nochal" means an heir, who stands on the receiving end; "manchil" means a bequeather, who stands on the giving end:
"Nochalin umanchilin" - relationships that work in both directions: whoever dies first, the other inherits from him.
"Nochalin velo manchilin" - if A dies, B inherits from him; but if B dies, A does not inherit from him.
"Manchilin velo nochalin" - if A dies, B does not inherit from him; but if B dies, A inherits from him.
"Lo nochalin velo manchilin" - blood relatives between whom there is no inheritance in either direction or under any circumstance.
The Mishnah brings three examples for each of the categories.
"Eilu nochalin umanchilin" - these inherit and bequeath:
"Ha'av et habanim" - when the father dies, his son inherits him.
"Vehabbanim et ha'av" - and vice versa: when the son dies and has no heirs, his father inherits him. The repetition is for the sake of parallelism in the language of the Mishnah.
"Veha'achin min ha'av nochalin umanchilin" - brothers from a shared father inherit from and bequeath to each other, depending on who passes away first.
In the last case, there are two possibilities. Yaakov and Leah have two sons, Reuven and Shimon. If the parents are no longer alive and Reuven passes away without children, Shimon inherits him, since in the absence of descendants and in the absence of a father, the father's descendants inherit, namely the brothers. If Yaakov had an additional wife, Rachel, and a son from her named Yosef, Yosef also inherits Reuven equally with Shimon. This is true even though Shimon is his full brother and Yosef is only his half-brother, since the calculation is made exclusively from the father's side.
Inherit but do not bequeath:
"Ha'ish et immo" - if a woman passes away, her son inherits her, and therefore he inherits. However, if a man passes away, his mother never inherits him, as the inheritance passes to his father and to his father's side of the family tree, and therefore he does not bequeath to her.
"Ha'ish et ishto" - if a woman passes away and her husband is alive, the husband inherits. However, if a husband passes away, his wife does not inherit from him, and thus he does not bequeath to her.
"Uvenei achayot" - the sons of a person's sister, meaning nephews. Shimon has a sister named Dinah, and Dinah has a son named Shaul. If Shimon passes away without children, without a father, and without brothers, and Dinah is also no longer alive, Shaul inherits Shimon. But if Shaul passes away, the inheritance does not go up through his mother's side to her brother Shimon. It turns out that Shaul inherits but does not bequeath.
Bequeath but do not inherit:
These are the exact same three previous cases, but from the opposite direction:
"Ha'ishah et baneha" - a woman bequeaths to her children but never inherits from them.
"Veha'ishah et ba'alah" - a woman bequeaths to her husband but never inherits from him.
"Va'achi ha'em" - the brother of a person's mother. In our example: Dinah is Shaul's mother, and Dinah has a brother named Shimon. Shimon may bequeath to Shaul, but he never inherits from him.
Neither inherit nor bequeath:
The fourth case is "Ha'achin min ha'em" - half-brothers who have a shared mother but not a shared father. If a woman was married to a first husband and they had a son, and she subsequently married a second husband and they had a son, the two sons are half-brothers from the mother's side only. Since kinship is measured according to the father's side, they are not considered relatives at all, and therefore there is no inheritance between them in either direction: they neither inherit nor bequeath.
In summary: At the beginning of the chapter "Yesh Nochalin" we established the five fundamental rules of inheritance laws - the order of closeness from descendants and upward, the precedence of males over females, descendants taking the place of their parents, calculating relationship from the father's side (and the two exceptions: the husband inheriting his wife and the son inheriting his mother), and equal division among relatives of equal standing. Afterward, we learned the four types of relationships in the Mishnah: those who inherit and bequeath, those who inherit but do not bequeath, those who bequeath but do not inherit, and those who neither inherit nor bequeath, along with the three examples the Mishnah provided for each of them. Later on, we will address the specific cases in the Mishnah and the Gemara in greater detail.