Issur the convert deposits 12,000 zuzim with Rava. This is a huge sum of money (remember that on Passover we sing about buying a kid for 2 zuzim). Now Issur is on his deathbed and he's looking to give his money away to his son Rav Mari. Unfortunately, there's a Rabbinic loophole that will keep Rav Mari out of his inheritance.
Here's the problem. When someone converts it's like they are born again. Legally, any family that they once had are no longer their family. When Issur fathered Rav Mari he was in an intermarriage. Because his mother was Jewish Rav Mari was a Jew. However, when his father decided later to convert to Judaism his former family disappeared. Even though he raised Rav Mari, he was not legally his son.
Now I usually love Rava (and so do the commentators; they make all kinds of excuses for why what he is about to do is ok) but he really messed up this one. Rava knew that if someone dies without heirs, whoever has their money in their possession would keep it. Rava had the 12,000 zuzim so he did what he needed to make sure it would stay in his position until Issur died.
In the meantime, the only way that Rav Mari can acquire his father's money is if Issur can formally hand over the money to his son.
A sidenote: the Rabbi's love boundaries. When is a person married, divorced, when does Shabbat start? Money is no different. The Rabbis go on for pages about when the ownership of a coin, house, land, slave, or marble is officially transfered the other party.
So Issur tries everything. He can't give the money over as inheritance because after the conversion Rav Mari is no longer related to him. He can't give it to him as a gift because the Rabbi decided that only those people who could pass their possessions through inheritance could do so through gifts. In other words, if you don't have any living relatives you can't give a deathbed gift.
He can't pass it down through an act called meshichah (pulling it close) because Rava had the money, nor though chalifin (where we exchange a handkerchief as a placeholder for the merchandise) because coins are not effected by this mode of transfer (Bava Metziah 46a). He couldn't give his son land and then add a clause in the contract saying that his son could get the money because he had no land. Finally he couldn't bring all three parties together (himself, his son, and Rava) and orally give Rav Mari the money because Rava would never come.
So what does he do? He lies and says that the coins were actually his son's all along. Rava gets really angry and this lie becomes the basis for an important law: why its ok for someone to acquire something just because a sick person says its his.
So what's so special about this odd story?
Because for the liberal Jews there are many problems that seem insurmountable. How do we stay loyal to tradition but embrace the GLBT community, assure that no woman is trapped in her marriage because she can't get a Jewish divorce document called a get (she is called an aggunah) and how to fully embrace the intermarried family. Maybe this story can serve as a precedent. Sometimes all we can do is lie, close our eyes to the reality of the text and Jewish law, and change the course of tradition for the better.
Thoughts?
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