Bava Batra 13: Dividing What is Indivisible; "Either You Set a Price or I Will Set a Price"

After completing their conversation about inherited property located along water that is shared by siblings, the Gemara moves to discuss other halachot of division.  Rabbi Yehuda suggests that items that are difficult to divide, like a hall, should be subject to the statement, "either you set a price or I will set a price." In these cases one inheritor is able to buy out the other.  Rabbi Nachman disagrees with the notion that one person should be able to buy out the other.

What should be done if the inheritance to a firstborn son and another son is a slave and a non-kosher animal?  Rabbi Nachman answers that the slave and the animal should work one day for the second-born son and two days for the firstborn son.  

And what about a slave who is half-slave and half-freeman?  The rabbis are specifically speaking about a male slave; a maidservant is subject to different halachot since she is not obligated to procreate and if she is found to be sexually active, she is emancipated with a promissory note that she will pay back her cost, and she will marry.  This man who is enslaved, however, cannot marry since he is forbidden to marry both maidservants and freewomen.  He is obligated to fill the world (Isaiah 43:18).  His owners are forced by the court to free him with a promissory note that he will pay back his cost.  Thus this is a case of "I will set a price" but not "you will set a price."

What if one poor brother and one rich brother inherit their father's bathhouse or olive press?  These might have been used as businesses.  However, if they were for personal use, each brother can suggest that the rich brother buy the poor brother's share, but the poor brother cannot offer to buy the rich brother's share.  The rabbis debate about these statements.

The Gemara begins its shift toward a discussion of sacred texts.  Can these be divided?  Under what circumstances?  A scroll might be separated from it's second half if it only contains the first half of the Torah to begin with.  Before more directly exploring texts, the rabbis briefly mention the case of two maidservants, one who bakes and cooks and one who knits and weaves.  They cannot be separated because both of them are required by both of the two brothers who would be inheriting them.  

Delving more deeply in the questions surrounding divisions of sacred texts, the rabbis wonder whether the Torah, Prophets and Writings could be written together on one scroll, or whether they should be separated.  Permitted scrolls such as these are shared as case examples.

We then learn that four empty lines should be left between books of the Torah.  Three empty lines should be left between each of the books of the Prophets, as they are all connected.  It is permitted to end one book of the Prophets at the bottom of a column and begin the new book in the next column without those three lines.  We are taught that it is permitted to write all of these sacred texts in one scroll as long as there is sufficient parchment to wrap around the pole at the start of the writing and again enough parchment to wrap around the entire circumference of the scroll at the end of the writing.  

The notes by Steinsaltz are helpful here.  We learn a number of halachot regarding our sacred texts, including ending each book of the Torah in the middle of a column and beginning the next book after only four empty lines, always within the same column.  This is done to ensure that we do not divide the five books of the Torah within a scroll.  They are meant to be kept together.