Study Bava Batra folio 115B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
הא כיצד? נחלה ממשמשת והולכת, עד ראובן. ולימא עד יעקב! אמר אביי: גמירי דלא כלה שבטא.
The Talmud asks: How so, i.e., how is the investigation performed when he has no offspring at all? The Talmud answers: The family lineage that determines the inheritance is successively examined up to Reuben, son of Jacob, i.e., the heirs are determined by investigating the family genealogy, and that investigation can extend all the way to Reuben, son of our forefather Jacob. The Talmud asks: And let it say: Until Jacob himself, rather than until Reuben, since if none of Reuben’s descendants survive, one would have to examine Jacob’s descendants. Abaye said in reply: It is learned as a tradition that a tribe will not be eliminated entirely, and some descendants will always remain.
אמר רב הונא אמר רב: כל האומר תירש בת עם בת הבן, אפילו נשיא שבישראל – אין שומעין לו, שאינן אלא מעשה צדוקין. דתניא: בארבעה ועשרים בטבת תבנא לדיננא. שהיו צדוקין אומרין: תירש הבת עם בת הבן.
§ Rav Huna says that Rav says: With regard to anyone who says that a daughter of the deceased should inherit the estate of her father along with the daughter of the son of the deceased, even if he is a prince of the Jewish people, one should not listen to him, as this is nothing other than an act of the Sadducees, and runs counter to the ruling of the Mishnah that the descendants of a son inherit before a daughter. As it is taught in a baraita in Megillat Ta’anit, which describes various minor holidays on which it is forbidden to fast or eulogize: On the 24th of Tevet, we returned to our law, i.e., the halakha was reestablished in accordance with the opinion of the rabbis after having been dictated by the Sadducees. As the Sadducees would say: A daughter should inherit the estate of her father along with the daughter of the son of the deceased.