Inheritance | Imamother

myname1

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 3:53 am

I know that the Torah has laws of inheritance, like the first son gets double, and the rest is split by the other boys. I have never heard any feminist arguments on this point, so I was wondering if it is followed today. It is obviously not followed by secular people, and anyway wouldn't be followed by more egalitarian groups, but what about other Orthodox/chareidi/Yeshivish/whatever groups? Do they follow these halachos, and if not, how do they get around it?

myname1

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 4:44 am

Well it has to do with feminism because it is saying men should be treated differently than women. In terms of a good brother sharing with his sisters, I'm not sure that's necessarily true. If someone earns $10,000/month at his job, and his brother earns much less, he won't necessarily split his salary with his brother because he's a "good brother". He earns his salary. So if the Torah says a son deserves the inheritance and a daughter not, then it seems a brother can take it and not share with his sister because he for some reason earned it more than her, no? It obviously is not something we're used to hearing today, which is why I am so curious if people actually do it.

rachel91

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 4:59 am

myname1 wrote:

Inheritance is not an income, it's inheritance.
And siblings usually share.
I can guess that the father asks his sons, if they are okay with it, that everything is split evenly.
Most people would answer 'yes'.

grace413

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 7:06 am

rachel91 wrote:

Sorry but you are naïve.

Many siblings do not share. Many siblings are estranged.

Many fathers die without wills, halachic or otherwise.

The halachic solution is as FS wrote.

rachel91

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 7:13 am

grace413 wrote:

Sorry but you are naïve.

Many siblings do not share. Many siblings are estranged.

Many fathers die without wills, halachic or otherwise.

The halachic solution is as FS wrote.

First of all I'm not naive. I didn't write that every single person in the world shares, I wrote that a good person (and one who has a good relationship with their sibling, obviously) will most propably want to share. Nice that this makes me 'naive'. Rolling Eyes

33055

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 7:37 am

Another type of halachic will is one where the brother gets the money and a trust gets created. He can keep say $100,000 but then he must pay in trust $300,000 for his sisters if he chooses to keep their share. The trust for the sisters is about three times the inheritance so no one would choose it.

Also there are problems with the halachic will FS described if the money is an IRA. There is no way to gift the money a moment before death because of income tax consequences. If the decedent earned the IRA then there is no problem leaving the money to whom the decedent wants to. If the money came from the earnings of the father to the mom, then the mom must make the halachic will. This only applies to money that the decedent didn't earn.

I am not an expert. This was the advice given by a BD. This advice about the IRA might be different in EY.

33055

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 7:42 am

rachel91 wrote:

Unfortunately, it kind of does make you naive. Way more often than not people look to maximize their inheritance at the expense of their siblings.

Tablepoetry

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 8:40 am

rachel91 wrote:

I also think this is naive. I know too many families torn apart over this sort of thing (thankfully, not mine. But we are a rarity). Inheritances can cause normally sane people to go crazy. Giving some people 'extra' power is just making things worse, IMO.

Even the 'nicest' sons can think they deserve more in many cases. So many factors. A son can think he deserves his 'halachically just' portion because he took the best care of the parents, or because he is the only religious one, or because he is the only one with kids and all his siblings are high earning professionals.....
You don't need to be a bad son for this.

I honestly don't get why the whole system is not overturned by contemporary rabbis. How relevant is it today? Especially in circles where WOMEN are the ones who support the family, not men? It seems ludicrous.

Why should a woman today be dependent on her brothers' good will? Even worse, why should a widow be dependent on her son's good will? Why should she have to answer to him?

Way beyond me.

I will say that I don't know a single person who split the funds according to the 'halachically' ordained way. I don't know how they get around it. I do know that all the secular people in Israel that I know had the inheritance split equally among the siblings if there was no will, so the rabbanut must be offering this as the default.

Tablepoetry

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 8:47 am

rachel91 wrote:

That's halacha. Good brothers, who are good human beings, would want to share their inheritance with their sisters.

There are things like a ketuba to protect women from not-so-good husbands.
So IMO there should be something to protect women from not-so-good brothers and sons.
Not all of them will share, and a woman should not be dependent on their good will.

groovy1224

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 8:57 am

Our first DC is a boy, so when we made our will after he was born we asked a rav if we had to have the will split the inheritance according to halacha once we had more children. We were told to just specify in our will a small sum of money to be divided according to halacha, (so now, since we have 2 kids, it's $150. Older ds gets 100, younger gets 50.) The rest we were free to divide equally as per our wishes. We were happy with that solution.

amother

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 9:00 am

I don't know anyone who split the inheritance the halachic way, even if they didnt have a halachic will in place. In my mothers family, every sibling got equal amounts and there was no halachic will. And they are all frum. It should be understood that no one deserves more just because they have a pe-nis.
rachel,it's never a good idea to rely on someone to be "nice" especially when it comes to money. Money unfortunately can bring out the worst in people and if someone is told they deserve more, well good luck getting them to give up their right to more. Best to split it evenly from the get go, regardless of sons or daughters.

amother

Sun, Jul 13 2014, 9:08 am

I just read a book about it albeit in yiddish. Its about inheritance; jewish law versus US laws. It was well done and the author surely knew his way around it. He basically talks about trust funds, following jewish as well as secular law, avoiding family feuds, and ensuring the daughters are as happy as the sons after a father leaves this world. It was an interesting read.