Talmud Bavli
Talmud Bavli

Musar for Bava Batra 233:5

רבי שמעון בן אלעזר אומר

To what, however, may, according to the tales of the tribes of their fathers<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Those who came out of Egypt. ');"><sup>3</sup></span> they shall inherit, he applied? — [To the following:] This [manner of] inheritance is different from all [other modes of] inheritance<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'inheritances'. ');"><sup>10</sup></span> in the world; for, in [the case of] all [other] successions in the world, the living are heirs to the dead but, in this case, the dead were heirs to the living.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Those who entered Canaan received shares according to their number, but the total of the shares was again divided in accordance with the number of their fathers who came out of Egypt. If two brothers, for example. came out of Egypt and died, and five sons of the one, and one son of the other entered Canaan, every son received a share, Six shares being allotted to the six sons. All these shares were then transferred to their fathers whose number was two (the dead being heirs to the living), and divided into two shares, each, of course, representing three of the original shares. The five sons thus received between them three of the original shares only, while the one son received for himself alone also three such shares. ');"><sup>11</sup></span> Rabbi said: I will give you an example to which this thing may be compared. To two brothers, priests, who were in one town. One had one son and the other had two sons, and these went to the threshing-floor.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' To collect their priestly dues. ');"><sup>12</sup></span> He who has one son receives one portion, and the one who has two sons receives two portions. They<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The two brothers. ');"><sup>13</sup></span> [then] return [with the three portions] to their father,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Whose estate has not yet been divided between them, in which case all acquisitions are pooled in the estate (cf. infra 137b). And since the three shares thus revert to their father, they inherit from him in equal shares. ');"><sup>14</sup></span> and re-divide [the total] in equal shares. R. Simeon b. Eleazar said:

Shenei Luchot HaBerit

ונתתי אותה לכם מורשה. The expression מורשה instead of ירושה, inheritance, is puzzling. The people addressed were after all those slated to inherit the land, not the ones slated to pass it on to their children. We must understand the verse as do our sages who have told us that this particular inheritance is of a different nature than all other inheritances. Under normal circumstances the living inherit from the dead. In this instance the dead inherited from the living. Rashi explained this procedure on Numbers 26,55. As a result, the land returned to the generation that had left Egypt as a מורשה, since the people who died in Egypt died on behalf of the land, though they did not merit coming to the land of Israel. Consequently we may view those that left Egypt as inheriting it from their deceased parents. It was therefore a מורשה, something that had been transferred to them by their parents. It is part of G–d's practice to display grace to those who find themselves in pain.
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