Definition of 'Relatives' in a Will and Apotropos Authority to Compromise

Description

A wealthy man's will established a permanent endowment for all his 'Verwandten und Verwandtinnen' (relatives), with his brother as apotropos. The Chasam Sofer rules that strictly speaking, 'relatives' (kerovim) in Hebrew legal usage includes only those disqualified from testimony and does not include a wife's relatives after the husband's death; however, the broader German term 'Verwandten' creates conflicting presumptions of intent that justify a compromise. He concludes that the apotropos acted correctly in granting the widow's family approximately one-sixth of the endowment profits.