2,711 pages of Talmud. A gem a day.

We have been learning that if a found item has a distinguishing mark, we need to try to return it. Today’s daf deals largely with items that have no distinguishing mark, but have been left in a purposeful pattern by which they might be identifies.

Rabbi Yirmeya raises a dilemma: If one found coins configured like a round bracelet, what is the halakha? If they were configured like a straight line, what is the halakha? If they were configured like a triangle, what is the halakha? If they were configured like a ladder, one partially upon the other and partially protruding, what is the halakha? The Gemara suggests: Resolve at least one of these dilemmas, as Rav Naḥman says that Rabba bar Avuh says: For any arrangement of coins such that if one were to introduce a wood chip between the coins he could thereby lift them all at once with that wood chip, he is obligated to proclaim his find.

So, if they are in a shape that can be lifted (great visual here), they are considered to have a distinguishing mark. Now we get a real twist:

Rav Ashi raises a dilemma: If they were configured like the stones of the house of worship dedicated to the Roman deity Mercury, what is the halakha? The Gemara suggests: Come and hear a resolution of the dilemma. As it is taught in a baraita: If one found scattered coins, these belong to him. If they were configured like the stones of the house of worship dedicated to Mercury, he is obligated to proclaim his find. The Gemara explains: And these are coins that were configured like the stones of the house of worship dedicated to Mercury: One was situated here on one side, and one was situated there alongside it, and one was situated atop the two of them.

What!? The house of Mercury? Is this not Pegan worship? Oh, yes it is. Apparently, Mercury is the god of merchants (like Hermes) and the rabbis hated him and considered him as idolatrous (because, worshipping him would be idolatrous). However, we learn from here that a standard bricklaying scheme is what it would look like to build a house to him, and so they too marked coins as not accidentally dropped, but placed there by someone who might want to pick them back up.

Our daf today marks Mar Zutra as a detective . . . the kind that pays attention to little things and therefor solves the mystery.

The Gemara relates: A silver goblet was stolen from the host of Mar Zutra Ḥasida. Mar Zutra saw a certain student of Torah who washed his hands and dried them on the cloak of another. Mar Zutra said: This is the one who does not care about the property of another. He bound that student, and the student then confessed that he stole the goblet.

I love this little mystery. I wonder if this rabbi as detective inspired Harry Kemelman’s series where the rabbi solves mysteries . . .

Is it always bad to lie? While honesty is the best policy, and most of us need to work on being more honest, people can also be TOO honest. At the end of today’s daf we learn three things Sages can lie about and still be deemed trustworthy:

Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: With regard to these three matters alone, it is normal for Sages to amend their statements and deviate from the truth: With regard to a tractate, if he is asked whether he studied a particular tractate, he may humbly say that he did not, even if he did. And with regard to a bed, if he is asked whether he slept in a particular bed, he may say that he did not, to avoid shame in case some unseemly residue is found on the bed. And he can lie with regard to a host [ushpiza], as one may say that he was not well received by a certain host to prevent everyone from taking advantage of the host’s hospitality. What is the practical difference that emerges from this statement with regard to matters in which Torah scholars deviate from the truth? Mar Zutra says: The practical difference is with regard to returning a lost item on the basis of visual recognition. If we know about him that he alters his statements only with regard to these three matters, we return the lost item to him, but if he alters his statements with regard to other matters, we do not return the lost item to him.

So, he can lie out of 1) humility, 2) to avoid embarrassment and 3) to protect the privacy of others – without becoming a person we cannot trust.

🙂

I am going to try to do my taxes today. Maybe that’s why this passage is my gem for the day.

Ameimar, Mar Zutra, and Rav Ashi happened to come to the orchard [levustana] of Mari bar Isak. His sharecropper came and placed dates and pomegranates before them. Ameimar and Rav Ashi ate the fruit, but Mar Zutra did not eat the fruit due to the concern that the sharecropper had provided them with the fruit without the approval of the owner of the field. Meanwhile, Mari bar Isak came and found them eating his fruit and said to his sharecropper: Why didn’t you bring the Sages fruit from those higher-quality fruits? Ameimar and Rav Ashi said to Mar Zutra: Now why is the Master not eating the fruit? But isn’t it taught in a baraita: In a case where the owner of the field came and found him and said to him: You should have gone to take the produce of better quality and separate teruma from that; if produce of better quality than the produce he had separated is found, his teruma is considered teruma. Here too, it is clear that Mari bar Isak approved of the actions of his sharecropper. Mar Zutra said to them that this is what Rava said: The Sages said that the statement: You should have gone to take the produce of better quality and separate teruma, indicates consent of the owner only with regard to the matter of teruma, due to the fact that it is a mitzva and the owner is amenable to having the mitzva fulfilled. But here, in this incident, it is due to shame that he said this: Why did you not bring these Sages fruit from those higher-quality fruits? He did not really want to give them the fruit.

I would love for someone else to do my taxes without me having to think about it. That’s the equivalent of the sharecroppers giving tithes without the owner giving the explicit okay. But, while I personally am overjoyed to get to feed others – someone doing that with my food/money without my knowledge would not go over so well!

I can relate to the owner, who is thinking it’s none of the sharecropper business to feed other people, and that if he was doing it on my behalf, I would have wanted him to give them only the best.

In Deuteronomy 22:1-4 (and later in codes of law), we learn that we need to return lost items to their owners. Our daf discusses when this is hard to do. What if it’s lost in a place where lots of people pass by – how do we know who it belongs to? What if it’s indistinguishable form other items – how do we know it’s theirs? If the owner isn’t easy to find – can we keep it as our own?

MISHNA: In a case where one discovers lost items, which found items belong to him, and for which items is one obligated to proclaim his find so that the owner of the lost items can come and reclaim them? These found items belong to him: If one found scattered produce, scattered coins, bundles of grain in a public area, round cakes of pressed figs, baker’s loaves, strings of fish, cuts of meat, unprocessed wool fleeces that are taken from their state of origin directly after shearing, bound flax stalks, or bound strips of combed purple wool, these belong to him, as they have no distinguishing marks that would enable their owners to claim them. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir.Rabbi Yehuda says: If one finds any lost item in which there is an alteration, he is obligated to proclaim his find.

The daf goes into a lot of detail (including sesame seeds inside a 2X8 cubit space – I love geometry) but the general principle is that those objects that have a some sort of identifying mark has to be announced, while things that don’t have identifying marks can be claimed by the individual who found them.

Disagreements can be healthy. But sometimes, in the world of the Talmud, there are big problems that arise from these spats. Rabbis have destroyed the Bet Midrash (study hall), killed one another, caused storms, and shot laser beams from their eyes in their self-righteousness. Today’s is interesting as a beam holding up the Bet Midrash is dislodged by a disagreement.

The Gemara relates: There was a certain bill of divorce that was found in the court of Rav Huna, in which it was written that the bill of divorce was written in Sheviri City, which is located on the Rakhis River. Rav Huna said about this: We are concerned for the possibility that there are two cities named Sheviri, and that this bill of divorce may belong to someone else who lives in the other Sheviri, and therefore it should not be returned. Rav Ḥisda said to Rabba: Go out and examine this halakha, as in the evening Rav Huna will ask you about it. He went out, examined it, and discovered a relevant source, as we learned in the mishna: With regard to any court enactment, the one who found it must return it to its presumed owner. Since this bill of divorce was found in court, it belongs to this category and should be returned. Rav Amram said to Rabba: How can the Master resolve the halakha in the case of a bill of divorce, which is a ritual matter, from the mishna, which discusses monetary matters? Rabba said to him: Fool, we learned in the mishna that this halakha applies in the case of documents of ḥalitza and documents of refusal as well, which are ritual matters. At that point, the supporting cedar beam of the study hall dislodged. One Sage said: It was due to my fortune that it dislodged, as you spoke to me offensively, and the other Sage said: It was due to my fortune that it dislodged, as it was you who spoke to me offensively.

Drama! Rabba and Rav Amram disagree, call each other names – and the Bet Midrash is destroyed (and they both blame the other person).

I read a few commentaries about this scene and my favorite ws from 16th century Talmudist Bezalel ben Abraham Ashkenazi, better known as the Shitah Mekubetzet. He said that “Rabba claimed for the sake of rejecting my words the beam was broken and Rav Amram claimed it broke because of the dross that drooled from Rabba’s mouth.

So good! What do we learn? Words really do cause damage.

This little gem is dedicated to those Florida educators who said we cannot teach AP African American history and claimed that some slaves liked slavery:

According to the one who says that it is against a slave’s interests to leave his master’s authority and attain freedom, what is there to say?

What is there to say indeed! No one wants to be a slave, and if they do it’s because the alternative is so unbearably horrific. So, Florida, let’s do better.

On our daf today we learn why it’s so important to have witnesses. The Mishna teaches: If one found bills of divorce, or bills of manumission of slaves, or wills, or deeds of a gift, or receipts, he may not return these items to the one who is presumed to have lost them, as I say it is possible that they were written and then the writer reconsidered about them and decided not to deliver them.

You can imagine that the intended owners of this documents would surely want them. However, you can’t give the document to the intended recipient in case the bill was written but never intended to be given (you are not the writer’s emissary so you would create a legal conundrum). What’s more – the daf worries that there are other people with the same name who might get the document that was never intended for them at all! So, what can we do? We find something that has value and we don’t know what to do with it! This is why we need witnesses. Jewish legal documents are signed by two witnesses. They are the ones who can say whether a document was meant for so-and-so and if it was given.

I love the gem today!!!

Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said to Rabbi Yoḥanan: But what are you adding? Isn’t this principle stated in a mishna (Ketubot 88b), which teaches: If a woman produced a bill of divorce, and there was no accompanying marriage contract, she collects payment of her marriage contract? This is an example of Rabbi Yoḥanan’s principle that a court enactment enables one to collect a debt even without the relevant document. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: True, this mishna is a source for my principle; but had I not lifted up the shard for you, you would not have found a pearl beneath it. In other words, if Rabbi Yoḥanan had not pointed out the principle, Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba would not have realized that it was underlying the ruling of the mishna.

Yes: had I not lifted up the shard for you, you would not have found a pearl beneath it. What a great line! And what a fabulous example of what good teachers do! They help you realize what you already know! They help you to apply one rule learned in one context to another context – they make you feel smart and clever. they lift the shard for you so you can find the pearl.

Yay teachers!

How do we learn things?

One of the things I love about reading Talmud is seeing how wisdom is passed. There is one rabbi who always refers to his mother’s teachings. We see rabbis travel back and forth between Jerusalem and Babylon bringing wisdom. And today we get another glimpse into how wisdom is passed:

Rav Naḥman said: My father was one of the scribes of the judges of Mar Shmuel, and I was about six or seven years old, and I remember that they made an announcement, saying: Those deeds of transfer that are found in the marketplace should be returned to their owners, the creditors, in accordance with the opinion of Shmuel.

I love Rav Nahman’s reminiscence! Taking us back in time to when he was just a child following his dad to work and watching with curiosity and admiration for this great rabbi as he gets to see Mar Shmuel make a pronouncement! It’s like meeting a hero as a child.

Normally we might not trust someone’s 6 yer old memories to state a law – but this moment was clearly seared into his memory.