Bava Basra 9:3 - 9:4

השביחו גדולים את הנכסים – while they are still belonging to the estate (before division among heirs).

השביחו לאמצע – and these words refer, when they improved the estate on account of the estate themselves, for they didn’t take out anything of their own, but only from the estate of their father, they hired workers. And they improved the estate on account of themselves. But if they dug and planted and spent their own money, the improvements they made, they made for themselves.

וכן אשה שהשביחה – In the Gemara (Tractate Bava Batra 144a) we establish it with a woman inheriting such as the case of Reuven who married the daughter of Shimon, his brother. But alas, he died without having any children. And the daughters of Shimon, his brother, inherit him. It is found that his wife, who is the daughter of Shimon, his brother, inherits him with the rest of her sisters. And you might say that with this benefit that she derives due to the emerging rumor that she manages [her husband’s property] and improves it, even if she had said, “see what my husband left me etc.,” even so, she renounced it and wants to improve it for the common fund/estate (and divide the profit equally). But it comes to teach it that she improved it for herself.

שנפל אחד [מהן] לאומנות – to the service of the king, for it is the custom of the king to appoint from all the houses of the city one person [to serve] as custom-collector/publican for one month or two months.

נפל לאמצע – all the profit, because it was on account of his father that it came time, but if was on his account, because of his sharpness and importance and wisdom that he was taken into the service of he king, what he earned, the profit is for himself.

חלה ונתרפא – if he became sick by accident, meaning to say, that he was not negligent with himself and he is cured from the estate, but if he got sick from blowing cold winds/cold draughts, and similar things, and it is written concerning it (Proverbs 22:5): “Thorns and snares are in the path of the crooked; [He who values his life will keep far from them],” in this we state in our Mishnah that he is not healed other than from what is his.

שושבינות – it is the manner of wedding gifts (see Talmud Bava Batra 144b) that one takes a meal and a gift to the wedding and eats with him, and the other returns and does the same for that one when he marries a woman. But if the father sent the wedding gift undefined via the hand of one of his sons, and the wedding gift returned after that following the death of the father, it returned to the estate, because it is like a loan, for it can be collected in the Jewish court of law, For a person who brings a wedding gift to his friend can go back and claim the wedding gift from him in a Jewish court, that he should give him the wedding gift in the manner that he had given it to him. And it will be that the second marriage should be like the first marriage: if she is a virgin, she is a virgin, if she is a widow, she will be a widow, and if in public, it will be in public, and if it is private, it will be in private, for the second can say to the first, “I will not do with you other than in the manner that you did for me.”

אבל השולח לחבירו כדי יין וכדי שמן – without a wedding, or alternatively, at a wedding, and he doesn’t go to eat with him, this is not wedding gifts, but rather a [personal] gift, and they are not collected in the Jewish court.