Gittin 13 – Is there divorce after death?

If a man says, "Give a divorce (Get) to my wife," and then dies, they should not give her a Get any longer. Why? When the husband dies, the wife is free. Because of that, divorce after death does not make sense.

A parallel situation is the Get of a slave: if the master dies and nobody inherits the slave, he is free by himself, and giving him a Get now is meaningless. And if someone does inherit, then this slave is no longer in the domain of the dead man to give him freedom.

However, if one says, "Give a hundred zuz ($5,000) to a certain person," and then he dies, the heirs are obligated to give the money to the named recipient. This is not obvious at all. There was no act of acquisition, "Give him money" are just words. Once the man dies, normal inheritance laws should take effect, meaning that his estate goes to his closest relatives. Therefore, Rav wanted to say that perhaps this is only talking about money on the shelf, which had previously been given as a deposit, or that the man who said these words was dying. In that special case, the money is considered already given; otherwise, the dying person would die even sooner.

However, the law is correct in all cases, and they do fulfill the will of the deceased.

Art: The Money Changers by Christian Van Donck