Yevamot 67b (סז:) — the Talmud in English

We are not concerned with the minority of viable male fetuses; rather, we may assume that the fetus belongs to the majority, which are female or stillborn.

the minority of fetuses that are viable males. Rather, we assume that the fetus belongs to the majority, which are females or stillborn.

And if you prefer, I can say:

Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai always holds that

one is concerned for a minority

of viable male fetuses.

And as for the difficulty you raised—if so, why should the slaves eat on the basis of the other male sons, when we ought to be concerned that a male fetus may be found, and that it has a share in the slaves and disqualifies them from eating teruma—there is no difficulty:

We provide

the fetus with

a remedy,

as Rav Naḥman said in the name of Shmuel,

as will be explained below: They set aside a separate share of the father’s estate for the fetus, and it follows that the slaves belong exclusively to its male brothers.

For Rav Naḥman said in the name of Shmuel: Orphans

minors

who came to divide their father’s estate,

the

court

appoints a guardian for each of them,

for each one individually,

and he selects for them

each guardian appointed for the orphan on whose behalf he was appointed

a superior share.

And if

the orphans come of age,

the orphans

can

they

protest

the manner of the division and annul it. The division is effective only so that they may consume the produce until they come of age and protest.

But Rav Naḥman himself—

not in the name of Shmuel—

says: When they come of age,

the orphans,

they cannot

they

protest.

Since

if so,

you are saying that they can protest and annul the division—

what force would there be to a court’s authority?!

And once we have explained Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai’s reasoning—that it is accomplished through a remedy, by appointing a guardian for the fetus—it follows that the Sages who disagreed with him in the beraita must have disagreed even with regard to such a remedy.

And since that is so, we must consider:

Can it be said that

his position,

that of Rav Naḥman,

is subject to a dispute between tannaim, and according to the Sages, a court does not institute a remedy?!

and according to the Sages, a court does not make such an arrangement!?

And we answer:

No.

We cannot explain that Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai’s statement operates through a remedy and thereby infer that, according to the Sages, no remedy is instituted.

Rather,

everyone—

both the Sages and Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai—

accepts Rav Naḥman’s ruling,

that a remedy is instituted.

Had they wished to institute this remedy, even the Sages would have agreed that it should be instituted, and the slaves would eat. Rather, the case is one in which they did not institute the remedy.

And here they disagree with regard to whether one is concerned for a minority.

That is to say: Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai’s reasoning is that one is not concerned for a minority, and not that it is based on a remedy; this is like the Gemara’s first answer.

We learned in a beraita:

Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, says in the name of his father: A daughter enables them to eat; a son does not enable them to eat:

The Gemara assumes that his intention is that if there were daughters, all would eat, whereas if there were sons, the slaves of ironclad property would not eat.

Therefore we ask:

What is different about a son

who remains together with the fetus

that he does not enable

the slaves

to eat, because of the fetus’s share,

as perhaps a male will be found and have a share in the slaves?

A daughter also

who remains together with the fetus—

should she not enable them to eat, because of the fetus’s share?!

He said—

Abaye

explained

the words of Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, in the name of Rabbi Yosei, his father:

The Sages instituted the following: When a person dies and leaves sons and daughters,

when the estate is “large,” meaning that it contains enough for the sons and daughters to be supported from it until they come of age, the sons inherit the estate, while the daughters are supported from it until they come of age or marry a man [for it is a condition of the marriage contract that the daughters be supported from the estate until then].

When the estate is smaller than the stated amount, the daughters are supported from the estate, and the sons must solicit their food from door to door.

Here

—where Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, says, “A daughter enables them to eat”—we are dealing with a daughter who has not yet come of age and has not yet married, and who therefore has the right to receive support from the inherited estate.

And

with

slaves that are

“a small estate”

we are dealing, since the daughter acquires them by virtue of the Sages’ institution and enables them to eat teruma.

with a case in which the daughter acquires them by virtue of the Sages’ enactment and enables them to eat teruma.

And this is a case in which there is a son together with the daughter

with the daughter, and consequently the fetus, if female, is removed from the status of an heir under Torah law, since the son precedes her. Therefore, the daughter who is present can enable the slaves to eat teruma. For:

Whichever way you look at it

whether the fetus is male or female, the daughter who was already born is the one who acquires the slaves by virtue of the Sages’ institution, whereas the fetus has no share in the slaves at all and does not disqualify them from eating teruma—

because

if this fetus is a son

if the fetus with which she is pregnant is male, it has no share in the slaves, since

it is no superior

to

this

son

who stands

the other son who remains, who has no share in the slaves because the daughter acquires them by virtue of the Sages’ institution.

And

if

this fetus

is a daughter,

she likewise has no share in the slaves at all, since a male son is present before us and excludes daughters from inheritance under Torah law.

Lest you say that she too should acquire a share in the slaves by virtue of the law of “a small estate” and disqualify the slaves from enabling the daughter who was already born to eat teruma, this is not so, for:

Why does she eat

the small estate?—

By virtue of a rabbinic institution!

But

as long as she has not emerged into the air of the world,

a fetus that has not yet emerged into the air of the world,

the Sages did not institute

for her

the Sages

a right to a small estate.

And we challenge this explanation:

In what circumstances did you establish

the beraita—

with regard to a small estate?

If so,

say the latter clause,

in the words of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai:

“Perhaps a male fetus will be found, and the daughters have no share at all where there is a son.”

But if the beraita is dealing with a small estate, then

on the contrary, a small estate

belongs to the daughters?!

And we answer:

The latter clause—

the words of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai— \-

we now return to a large estate

we are dealing with a large estate.

The Gemara still asks:

And

is it really the case that

a small estate belongs to the daughters,

meaning, are slaves of a small estate considered to belong to the daughters themselves, so that they enable them to eat teruma?!

But Rabbi Asi said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: Orphans

males

who preceded

who came before the daughters went to court and the court placed the estate in the daughters’ possession [Rashi in Sota and Ketubot]

and sold from a small estate, whatever they sold was sold. This indicates that with regard to sale the estate remains in the sons’ possession. If so, how can the daughter enable the slaves to eat teruma? Perhaps the fetus is male and has a share in the slaves.

In light of this difficulty, the Gemara offers another explanation of the words of Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei:

Rather, what

is the meaning of

“a daughter

enables them to eat,”

as he teaches

in his statement:

“If

she enables them to eat,” the slaves of usufruct property belonging to her, by virtue of the sons she has from her husband, even though he also left a fetus that cannot enable her to eat; whereas “the son—whether male or female—does not enable” his slaves of ironclad property to eat, because of the fetus’s share. It is as though he said: The slaves of usufruct property may eat as she eats; the slaves of ironclad property may not eat.

And we ask:

If so, this is

the same as the first tanna, in the name of

Rabbi Yosei,

for he too said: The slaves of usufruct property may eat as she eats; the slaves of ironclad property may not eat because of the fetus’s share.

And we answer:

The entire

beraita

was taught by Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, meaning that this is what the beraita says: And Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, likewise said in the name of his father, “A daughter enables them to eat, whereas a son does not enable them to eat” [Meiri].

meaning: The baraita is saying as follows: Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, likewise said in the name of his father, “A daughter enables the slaves to eat, but a son does not enable them to eat” [Meiri].

Mishna:

In the preceding Mishna we learned: “The fetus disqualifies” its Israelite mother who was widowed or divorced from her husband, preventing her from returning to eat teruma in her father’s household, just as a child who was born disqualifies her; “but it does not enable” its Israelite mother who married a priest and became pregnant by him, unlike a child who was born, which enables its mother to eat.

The Mishna before us lists together with the fetus other cases that disqualify a priest’s daughter from eating teruma in her father’s household, while, conversely, they do not have the power to enable an Israelite woman to eat teruma, unlike comparable cases that do enable her.

The fetus

with which a priest’s daughter became pregnant by her Israelite husband, or with which an Israelite woman became pregnant by her priest husband.

And the levir

that is, a priest’s daughter who was widowed by her husband and is required to perform levirate marriage with an Israelite, or an Israelite woman who was widowed by her husband and requires levirate marriage with his priest brother.

, and the betrothal ,

that is, a daughter of a kohen who became betrothed to an Israelite, or a daughter of an Israelite who became betrothed to a kohen.

And the deaf-mute

—he neither hears nor speaks and lacks understanding—an Israelite who married a daughter of a kohen, whose marriage takes effect only by rabbinic enactment, or a kohen who married a daughter of an Israelite.

A minor becomes fit for intercourse from the time he becomes nine years and one day old; but below this age, his intercourse is not considered intercourse with regard to the entire Torah.

And one who is nine years and one day old,

this clause is explained in the Gemara.

These

disqualify

the daughter of the kohen from eating teruma in her father’s household,

but do not enable

an Israelite woman to eat teruma when they are kohanim [the explanation of this clause with regard to one who is nine years and one day old is given in the Gemara].

And even if

it is uncertain whether he is nine years and one day old or whether he is not,

he too is included, stringently, in the law stated with regard to one who is certainly nine years old.

Likewise, concerning what we learned: The betrothal disqualifies, this law applies even to a minor who betrothed the woman,

when it is uncertain whether he has produced two pubic hairs

and his betrothal is valid,

and it is uncertain whether he has not produced

two pubic hairs and his betrothal is not valid; since his status is uncertain, we are stringent with regard to him.

And since we learned two laws concerning cases of uncertainty in which we rule stringently, the Mishna adds another:

The house collapsed upon him and upon

his wife, who was

his brother’s daughter,

and both of them died. He had no children, and he had another wife, the co-wife of his brother’s daughter,

and it is not known which of them—

he or his brother’s daughter—

died first.

Since the matter is uncertain, we rule stringently and say:

Her co-wife

of his brother’s daughter

performs chalitza

with his brother

but may not undergo yibbum

with him.

For it is uncertain whether his co-wife requires yibbum and is permitted to undergo yibbum.

For if the husband died first, and his daughter and her co-wife fell before his brother for yibbum, the co-wife was exempted from yibbum and chalitza, as the co-wife of an erva, and she is forbidden in yibbum as the wife of a brother where there is no mitzva; therefore, she may not undergo yibbum.

But if the woman, his daughter, was the one who died before her husband, then only her co-wife fell before his brother for yibbum, and she requires yibbum; therefore, she performs chalitza.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna:

The fetus

disqualifies but does not enable:

And we explain the reason:

If

his pregnant mother

is the daughter of a kohen married to an Israelite,

and her husband died,

it disqualifies her

the fetus from returning to the teruma of her father’s household, since the Torah said: “And she shall return to her father’s household”

“as in her youth,”

teaching you that she returns to her father’s household only when she resembles the state of her youth—

excluding a pregnant woman.

And

if

his pregnant mother

is an Israelite woman married to a kohen

and her husband died,

it does not enable her

the fetus to eat teruma, because the Torah said: “And those born in his household, they shall eat of his bread,” and we read it as: “They shall enable him to eat of his bread,” teaching you:

one who is born

is the one who

enables,

but

one who is not born does not enable.

We learned in the Mishna:

The yavam

and so forth, disqualify but do not enable:

And we explain the reason:

If she is the daughter of a kohen married to an Israelite, he disqualifies her

the yavam from the teruma of her father’s household, since the Torah said

“And she shall return” to her father’s household.

This refers to one who is able to return to her father’s household—

excluding a woman awaiting yibbum,

who cannot return, since she is bound to yibbum.

And

if she is an Israelite woman married to a kohen, he does not enable her

the kohen yavam to eat teruma until he takes her in marriage, since the verse states: “When a kohen acquires a person,

‘the acquisition of his money’

he shall eat of it,”

the Merciful One said; but this is his brother’s acquisition.

We learned in the Mishna:

And the betrothal

disqualifies but does not enable:

The daughter of a kohen who married an Israelite, who disqualifies her from the teruma of her father’s household, is derived from what the Torah said: “And when the daughter of a kohen becomes a widow or a divorcee, she shall return to her father’s household; from her father’s bread she may eat.”

You have therefore learned: Until she returns to her father’s household, she may not eat teruma.

And although we do not require this verse, since the Torah said: “And when the daughter of a kohen becomes married to a foreign man, she may not eat of the sacred offerings,” the Sages explained that this verse does not come to teach that a woman who married a foreign man is thereby disqualified from teruma, for we can derive this from the verse: “And when the daughter of a kohen becomes a widow or a divorcee.”

Rather, this verse comes only to teach about a woman who had intercourse with a foreign and disqualified man, that she is disqualified from eating teruma [as all this is explained in the Gemara below on this page].

Nevertheless, since if not for the verse “And when the daughter of a kohen becomes a widow or a divorcee,” we would have interpreted the verse “And when the daughter of a kohen becomes married to a foreign man” as referring to one who married an Israelite, the Gemara cites this verse here in order to teach the details of the laws governing a daughter of a kohen who married an Israelite [Tosafot].

And we explain the reason:

If

his betrothed

is the daughter of a kohen married to an Israelite, he disqualifies her

the Israelite betrothed husband from the teruma of her father’s household,