Ketubot 95 - October 9, 14 Tishrei

Study Guide Ketubot 95

Today's daf is sponsored by Deborah Spinner in loving memory of her mother and mother-in-law.

The Mishna discusses a situation where a man is married to two wives and sells his property. If the first wife tells the buyer that she waives her rights to the property for collecting her ketuba, the second wife can collect it from the buyer, then the first wife can collect it from the second wife as she has first rights to the ketuba, and then the buyer can demand it from the second wife (as she waived her rights to ) and then the first wife can take the property for her ketuba and it can keep going on like this until the three of them come to a compromise. First, the Gemara questions the language used for the first wife to waive her rights as the same language appears in a discussion regarding a partnership agreement and that same language is not effective. After resolving that, the Gemara raises a contradiction from a Mishna in Gittin 55b where a wife can claim she waived her rights to the land just to appease her husband. Three possible resolutions are brought. One cannot collect from liened property when there is property in the hands of the debtor to collect from. But what if that property was damaged? Can the answer to this question be derived from Rabbi Meir's opinion in a braita quoted in the previous discussion regarding a woman who waived her rights to the second buyer but not the first? Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak and Rava each reject this comparison in different manners. Rav Yeimar tries to bring an answer from a different seemingly similar situation where the courts rule in general that the land can be collected from later buyers, but his comparison is also rejected. In the end, the Gemara simply rules that it can be done. They quote two rulings of Abaye regarding a woman who received a gift from someone who said "This gift is for you and when you die, it will go to someone else (a named person)." In one case, the husband gets rights to it and not the other person and in the other, the other person does. What is the difference between the cases? The second case seems to go against our Mishna. How can this be explained?