Resources for Kesubos 104
1. The גמרא says that when רבי got sick and was in pain his maidservant davened that he should die. רבי עקיבא איגר on the side of the גמרא cites the ר"ן in נדרים דף מ that uses our גמרא to explain the גמרא there that says “one who doesn’t do ביקור חולים doesn’t daven for the person to live or die”. He explains that sometimes one should daven for a person to die if they see they are suffering a lot. Nonetheless, the מנחת שלמה in חלק א סימן צ"א אות כ"ד says that even in times when one must daven for a sick person to die, one is obligated to do everything to help the person live such as to be מחלל שבת to keep them alive. In a similar vein, in אגרות משה in חו"מ ב, סימן ע"ג אות א, Reb Moshe זצ"ל says that one can only help the person die with שב ואל תעשה such as not giving them medicine to make them live, but one could never poison them as that would be outright רציחה.
2. The גמרא says that רבי raised his ten fingers heavenward and said that he never got even a pinky’s worth of הנאה from this world even though he worked with all his ten fingers in Torah. The מכתב מאליהו in חלק א עמוד 6 asks that רבי was famously a wealthy man and had every time of dish at his table. If so, why would Hashem have made רבי rich if wasn’t going to benefit from it anyway? He answers that of course רבי benefitted from it. However, he was at the level where he recognized that everything in creation is meant to serve Hashem and the הנאה he took was always to foster כבוד שמים. Therefore, it is considered as if he didn’t get any personal הנאה from it.
3. The משנה says that according to the חכמים after 25 years after the death of her husband a woman can no longer collect her כתובה as it is assumed that she was מוחל. The קצות החושן in סימן י"ב brings a מהרש"ל that says that if someone has a שטר חוב on someone else and is mentally מוחל the שטר without saying a word but then gets mad and wants to be “un-מוחל” it, it is too late and he cannot collect the loan. His proof is our משנה that seems to be exactly that case (where the woman was presumably מוחל and now wants to collect anyway). The קצות doesn’t understand this since we never find that doing anything in your heart alone counts. It doesn’t even help by a נדר so why would it work for מחילה? He also rejects the idea that it works מדין סילוק as סילוק only helps before you get the item and not once you get it. Rather, it must be that it is considered דברים שבלב כל אדם. In other words, if it is apparent to all that you are מוחל then it counts as if you said it since your intentions are obvious to all.
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