Talmud - Bava Batra 150b בבא בתרא ק״נ ב׳

Rav Ashi said to Ravina: The reason the slave is not emancipated if the master reserved part of the property for himself is not that the slave is included in the property that the owner reserved for himself. Rather, we teach this halakha as being due to the fact that the document is not a bill of manumission that completely severs the bond between the slave and the master.

§ Rava says that Rav Naḥman says: There are five types of gifts to which specific halakhot apply, but the halakhot do not apply until the owners write a deed granting all of their property to another without reserving anything for themselves, and they are as follows: The gift of a person on his deathbed, a gift to one’s Canaanite slave, a gift to one’s wife, a gift to one’s sons, and the gift of a woman who shelters her property from her prospective husband by transferring her property to another before her marriage. In this latter case the Sages instituted that if her husband dies or divorces her she can reclaim the property.

The Gemara explains each of these cases: In the case of a gift of a person on his deathbed, this is as we learned in the mishna (146b): With regard to a person on his deathbed who wrote a deed granting all of his property to others, and he reserved for himself any amount of land, his gift stands even if he subsequently recovers. If he did not reserve for himself any amount of land, and he recovered, his gift does not stand, as the gift was conditional upon his death, since evidently he did not intend to leave himself without means of support if he survived.

In the case of a gift to one’s slave, this is as we learned in a mishna (Pe’a 3:8): With regard to one who writes a deed granting all of his property to his Canaanite slave, the slave has been emancipated, but if he reserved for himself any amount of land, then he has not been emancipated, as perhaps he reserved the slave for himself as well.

In the case of a gift to one’s wife, this is as Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: One who writes a deed granting all of his property to his wife renders her only a steward of his property, i.e., he intends only to place her in charge of the property and she does not acquire it. According to Rav Naḥman, this applies only if he did not reserve any part of the property for himself.

In the case of a gift to one’s sons, this is as we learned in a mishna (Pe’a 3:7): With regard to one who writes a deed granting all of his property to his sons, and he writes in the deed that he grants any amount of land to his wife, she forfeits payment of her marriage contract. If he reserves any amount of land for himself, his wife does not forfeit payment of her marriage contract.

In the case of a gift of a woman who shelters her property from her intended husband, this is as the Master says: In the case of a woman who wishes to shelter her property from her prospective husband, she must write a deed granting all of her property to another. If she reserves for herself any amount of property, she cannot reclaim the property if she is widowed or divorced.

The Gemara concludes: With regard to all of these cases, reserving movable property is considered a significant reserving of property, except with regard to a woman’s marriage contract. If one grants all of his property to his sons except for any amount of land, which he gives to his wife, and he reserves for himself only movable property, his wife forfeits payment of her marriage contract, as nothing remains in the husband’s possession from which she is entitled to collect payment. This is because the Sages instituted that the lien on the marriage contract is placed on land, and the Sages did not institute that the marriage contract can be collected from movable property.

Ameimar said: With regard to movable property that is explicitly written in the marriage contract as property from which the debt may be collected and is still extant, if the husband reserves this property for himself, this is considered a significant reserving of property, and his wife does not forfeit payment of her marriage contract.

§ If one said: My property shall go to so-and-so, anything that is referred to as property is included in the gift. A Canaanite slave is called property, as we learned in a mishna (Pe’a 3:8): With regard to one who writes, i.e., gives via a document, all of his property to his Canaanite slave, the slave has been emancipated. Land is called property, as we learned in a mishna (Kiddushin 26a): Property that serves as a guarantee, i.e., land, can be acquired by means of money, by means of a deed, or by taking possession of it. A cloak, as well as other garments and movable property, is called property, as we learned in that same mishna: And property that does not serve as a guarantee, i.e., movable property, can be acquired only by pulling.

Money [zuzei] is called property, as we learned in that same mishna: And property that does not serve as a guarantee can be acquired together with property that serves as a guarantee by means of money, by means of a deed, or by taking possession of it. Money is among the types of property that can be acquired by means of the acquisition of land, as is evident from this incident involving Rav Pappa, who had twelve thousand dinars loaned to the people of Bei Ḥozai. Rav Pappa transferred ownership of the money to Rav Shmuel bar Aḥa, who was traveling to Bei Ḥozai, by means of transferring ownership of the threshold of his house, so that Rav Shmuel bar Aḥa could collect the money. When Rav Shmuel bar Aḥa came back with the money, Rav Pappa was so pleased that he went out as far as Tavakh to meet him.

A deed is called property, as Rabba bar Yitzḥak says: There are two types of deeds with regard to the acquisition of land. If one said to the witnesses: Acquire this field on behalf of so-and-so and write the deed for him as proof of the sale, the giver can retract the deed but he cannot retract the transfer of ownership of the field once the other party has taken possession of it. If one said: Acquire this field on behalf of so-and-so on the condition that you write the deed for him, the giver can retract both the deed and the transfer of the field, as he stipulated that the acquisition of the field is dependent on the writing of the deed.

And Rav Ḥiyya bar Avin says that Rav Huna says: There are three types of deeds. Two are those that we stated above, and the other is as follows: If the seller wrote the deed in advance and kept it until the buyer would come and pay him. The Gemara adds parenthetically: This is like that halakha that we learned in a mishna (167b):

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

BavaBatra 150b examines five special gift categories—deathbed grants, slave manumission, and gifts to a wife—requiring total property transfer without exceptions.