In this paper I would like to examine the status of inheritors with respect to the religious obligations of a person who died and could not discharge them. Apparently, this question is completely unfounded: religious obligations are personal, and how could one person discharge an obligation by the act of another, and what possible religious value or significance could such an act have?
In our case the question is even more difficult, since the person under obligation is now dead and exempt from religious precepts. If so, what could the ramifications of his discharge from duties be? In the present discussion, I will question these premises and introduce two completely different approaches to understanding the concept of inheritance in Talmudic literature. I intend to draw attention to the close connection between the legal and religious parts of the Halakhah, which treat matters of religious permissibility and the fulfillment of religious precepts, in the same manner as they treat purely legal issues.