1Rav Kahana said to him: If the husband had then acquired other property, would she not have taken it as payment of her marriage contract? And since if he would have then acquired other property she would have taken it as payment of her marriage contract, now she also takes the deceased daughter’s share as payment of her marriage contract.
2There was a certain person who divided his property between his wife and his son, leaving out a single palm tree. Ravina thought to say that the wife has only the single palm tree as future payment of her marriage contract, which was presumably left out of the distribution for this reason. Rav Yeimar said to Ravina: If she does not have the right to collect payment of her marriage contract from all of his property, as she presumably waived that right when he gave her the gift of some of his property, she does not have the right to collect it from the single palm tree either and it belongs to the heirs. Rav Yeimar presents a different ruling: Rather, since the halakha is that she does descend to collect the palm tree, she therefore descends to collect all of the property as well, i.e., she receives payment of her marriage contract from all the property.
3§ Rav Huna says: With regard to a person on his deathbed who wrote a document granting all his property to another, the court investigates the legal status of the recipient: If he is fit to inherit from him, e.g., if he is one of his sons, he takes the property as an inheritance, and if not, he takes it as a gift.
4Rav Naḥman said to him: Why should you steal this halakha and not attribute it to its source? If you hold in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, say explicitly that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, as your halakhic statement follows the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka that a person can bequeath his property to any of his heirs.
5Perhaps this is what you meant to say: There was a certain childless person who was dying, and those around him said to him: To whom should his, i.e., your, property be given? Perhaps it should be given to so-and-so? And he said to them: Rather, to whom if not him? And you, Rav Huna, meant to say to us: If that person is fit to inherit from him, he takes it as an inheritance, and if not, he takes it as a gift. Rav Huna said to him: Yes, that is what I was saying.
6The Gemara asks: With regard to what halakha is there a difference whether he receives it as an inheritance or as a gift? Rav Adda bar Ahava, who was in the presence of Rava, thought that it would be correct to say: If he is fit to inherit from him, the giver’s widow is sustained from his property, as she has the right to be sustained from the inheritance; and if not, and the property was given as a gift, his widow is not sustained from his property.
7Rava said to him: Can the widow’s right be diminished by the gift? Now that you say with regard to inheritance, which is granted by Torah law, that his widow is sustained from his property, with regard to the gift of a person on his deathbed, which is effective without any formal act of acquisition by rabbinic law, all the more so is it not clear that the widow has sustenance rights?
8Rather, Rava said that the difference whether it is inheritance or a gift is in accordance with the ruling that Rav Aḥa bar Rav Avya sent: According to the statement of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Beroka, in the case of one who said: My property is given to you, and after you to so-and-so, and the first recipient was fit to inherit from him, the second gets nothing in place of the first, i.e., he does not receive the property after the first one dies, as this formulation employed by the owner was not one of a gift. Rather, it was a formulation of inheritance, and inheritance has no end, i.e., it cannot be stopped. Therefore, since the first recipient acquired it as an inheritance, his heirs inherit it from him, and it cannot be taken by the second.
9Rava said to Rav Naḥman: But he ended it. The one who bequeathed it to him ended his inheritance in advance by stating that after the first dies, the property will be given to the second. The Gemara answers: He thought that inheritance has an end; but the Merciful One states that it has no end.