1) It is not possible that she is yotzel chinam, but without matanos, because if the master would do that he would transgress a Torah prohibition (Dvarim 15:13) "And when you send him free from you, do not send him away empty handed".

2) We say every morning (in the Braisa of Rabbi Yishmael) that the Torah is nidreshes by 13 middos. Kal veChomer is the first and there are 12 others.

3) A Kal veChomer is a totally accepted way of learning, but any specific Kal veChomer might have a "Pircha" on it; that we can ask a question on this particular Kal veChomer which invalidates it. Tosfos 16b DH Mah writes that a possible pircha on the Kal veChomer of Mitas HaAv might be that we have never found elsewhere that Mitas HaAv frees from Avdus. The whole point of the Gemara citing the Braisos is to try and decide whether there is a good pircha on the Kal veChomer of Mitas HaAv.

Dovid Bloom

Follow-up reply:

And this, of course, is what the Gemara says at the end of the discussion after stating that there is a Tiyuvta on Resh Lakish; and that his din that she goes out because the father died is rejected. The Gemara asks how can we reject Resh Lakish; but Resh Lakish said a Kal veChomer?! We see from this question that a Kal veChomer is in principle a very powerful argument, but the Gemara answers that in this particular case there is a pircha on Resh Lakish's Kal veChomer. The pircha is that one can not make a Kal veChomer from Simanim to Mitas HaAv because there is a strong reason why Simanim set her free, which does not apply to Mitas HaAv; namely that her body changed when she developed these Simanim of adulthood; so this provides good logic why she should go free; but when the father died her body did not change. Therefore Simanim is a good reason to go free but Mitas HaAv is not. This is the pircha which proves that Resh Lakish's Kal veChomer was flawed, and strengthens what we thought that the challenges on Resh Lakish from the Braisos were good challenges.

Yasher Koach

Dovid Bloom

Further reply:

I found, bs'd, that the Poras Yosef (one of the Mefarshim printed at the back of the Gemara) does in fact write that, according to the conclusion of the Gemara, she goes free when the father dies, but she does not get the presents. Poras Yosef writes that even though the Gemara asked a pircha on the Kal veChomer; so that the Kal veChomer has been now knocked down; nevertheless there is a different reason why she goes free when her father dies. This is because of simple logic:- it is not possible for the father to make a sale which is effective even after he dies. When the father dies he no longer has any authority over his daughter so it is not possible, when the father is alive, for him to make a sale which will be effective even after he dies.

Therefore when we rejected the Kal veChomer from Simanim, all this means is that she will not receive presents when she leaves, in the same way that she receives when she leaves because of Simanin. However because of the logic that when the father dies, all his power he possessed over his daughter disappears, she wil leave, but without presents.

[I do not know how Poras Yosef will refute what I argued:- that if she leaves without presents this means the master has transgressed the verse in Dvarim 15:13].

Dovid Bloom

Why does the Gemara not ask immediately on the innate flaw?:-

I understand that the question here is that the Gemara 16a cited the Kal veChomer of Resh Lakish, but it took a whole Amud before the Gemara stated that this Kal veChomer is "Pricha"?! We could have saved ourselves a lot of unnecessary discussion?!

I argue that the answer to this question is that:-

1) We assume that Resh Lakish had good reasoning behind his Kal veChomer and may have ways of answering our pircha. In fact, even after the Gemara 16b asked the pircha on the Kal veChomer, we see that Tosfos DH uMah made a number of attempts to suggest alternative ways of asking the Kal veChomer, so the pircha is evidently not at all obvious and it was worth citing the Braisos, from which we may have been able to provide support for Resh Lakish.

2) I also point out that this is not the only place in Masechet Kidushin that this happened. Above, on page 4b; 9 lines from the top of the page; the Gemara asked that we can derive; by a Kal veChomer from Ama HIvriya; that a Jewish lady can be married through money. A few lines later Rav Ashi stated that the Kal veChomer is pricha. However Rav Ashi did not ask this straight away, and there was intermediate discussion, so we see that the Gemara does discuss things before suggesting an innate flaw.

3) Also, there is a lot of Torah that we learnt between the beginning and end of this sugya and if we would have cited the pircha immediately we would have lost all that Torah.

4) However, there are circumstances where one does not hesitate and asks a question immediately. See Tosfos 13a DH Kol, on the very bottom line of the page, that if we would have thought that Rav Assi was following Beis Shamai, we should have asked immediately "Shall we say Rav Assi is going like Beis Shamai?!". That is a clear rule that we have that the Amoraim do not follow Beis Shamai.

Shavua Tov

Dovid Bloom