Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Kesubos 52a - Paying Ransom from Inheritance

The gemara concludes that even if the wife is kidnapped in the lifetime of her husband, and he then passes away, the yorshim are not responsible to pay the ransom from the inheritance since the t'nai kesuba is "v'osvinach l'intu" - to take her back as a wife and he is no longer able to do that. Someone in my shiur pointed out that if this is the rationale, then by an eishes kohen the halacha should be that the yorshim must redeem her. To me it seems that this would depend on the machlokes abbaye and rava. Acc. to abbaye the tnai kesuba of a kohen can place greater demands on the husband following the strict interpretation of the language, but according to rava (as explained by rashi) we only use the language by a kohen to make him equal in his responsibilities to a yisroel but not to make him have more responsibility than a yisroel (see rashi d.h. rava amar), therefore here also the yorshim of a kohein would not be required to pay the ransom. Even according to abbaye that they would be required, it would seem that in this respect the second braisa would not disagree with the first, and also maintain that the obligation only exists if the husband knew about the kidnapping before he died, because otherwise the inheritance is not mishubad at all.

1 comment:

Yossie Schonkopf said...

בחוברת וכתבתם, ר' ראובן רוזובסקי מכולל בית הלל מעיר שלדעת אלו שסוברים לעיל שאזיל בתר מעיקרא א"כ ה"ה הכא ניזיל בתר מעיקרא ובשעת נישואין היה שייך ואותבינך לאינתו