Bava Kamma, opens with the four “primary categories of damage”: the ox, the pit, the maveh (which the Talmud concludes refers to human beings) and the fire. These archetypes of damage have to do with whether the accidental damage was done actively or passively, whether it was predictable or not, and a range of other factors. Each of these primary categories is then divided into subcategories, with nuances galore. Here we meet two different kinds of oxen — the innocent ox, and the goring ox — and learn how animal owners are assessed for the damage caused by their animals based in part on how much they are expected to anticipate that their animal will cause harm. Each of these four categories causes damage, but that damage is unintentional (at least by the human owner of the animal or pit, or the starter of the fire). 

Bava Kamma then shifts to thinking about the kinds of financial loss caused by intentional harm: theft, robbery, physical violence. Beyond simple compensation, the people who perpetrate these acts have to pay additional penalties for the harm that they’ve caused. For example, we learned on Bava Kamma 83b that:

One who injures another is liable for that due to five types of indemnity: for damage, for pain, for medical costs, for loss of livelihood, and for humiliation.

Bava Kamma reminds us that we are responsible for the damage we cause intentionally, but we are also responsible for any unintentional damage that we caused, even damage we set in motion years earlier (like digging a pit and then forgetting about it). For the rabbis, to be a human in the world is to be considered always “forewarned” (Bava Kamma 26a), meaning to be aware that our actions can cause harm and that we must take extra caution in everything we do. 

Bava Metzia opens with a discussion of how to determine ownership of lost objects. Since the previous tractate ended on the topic of the laws of taking ownership, the Talmud continues by exploring the legal mechanisms by which things are bought and sold. At what exact moment of an exchange of money for goods, for example, does the buyer take ownership of whatever they are buying? And if it turns out that the buyer is unhappy with the product, when is the seller required to take it back and give back the buyer’s money? 

The tractate then shifts again to thinking about four different kinds of people who take legal possession of other people’s things: paid and unpaid guardians, renters, and borrowers. Each kind of person has a different degree of responsibility if the thing they are watching or using is damaged or stolen. 

Both Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia are explicitly rooted in biblical civil law. The rabbis conclude that Exodus 21 and 22 are the source texts for the laws of damages, theft, robbery, guardianship, renting and borrowing. But the final tractate in the Bavas, Bava Batra, shifts the discussion away from interpreting biblical laws and toward the rabbinic construction of property law. 

Bava Batra opens by considering what property owners owe their neighbors (spoiler alert: don’t be a loud, smelly peeping tom, and don’t infringe on your neighbor’s presumptive rights). Here we also learned how property can be individually or jointly owned, purchased, given as an inheritance or gifted. Finally, since good contracts make good neighbors, the entire corpus ends with a discusison of how to write clear, legally-valid contracts that meet the expectations of all parties involved, and how to interpret and validate contracts in court.

Taken together, the Bavas are traditionally understood to be the foundation of Jewish civil law. They lay out how rabbinic society deals with the kinds of damage that leads to financial loss, and the various principles that the rabbis use to think about individual property rights, buying and selling, inheritance and how to be a good neighbor. Like all talmudic tractates, they also contain fascinating diversions to other topics that are less legal nature, including: the ten conditions that Joshua stipulated when the Israelites settled the land (Bava Kamma 81a) and the ten ordinances that Ezra instituted when the Jews returned from the Babylonian Exile (Bava Kamma 82), the story of the legendary relationship between Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish (Bava Metzia 84a), how Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi’s callousness toward a calf being led to slaughter led to him being punished for 13 years and how his kindness toward baby weasels led God to finally take compassion on him (Bava Metzia 85), an exploration of the biblical Job (Bava Batra15b), and wonderful stories of Rabbah bar bar Hana’s adventures at sea (Bava Batra 73a).

The final pages of Bava Batra remind us that the foundation of Jewish wisdom may well lie in these three tractates: 

Rabbi Yishmael said: One who wants to become wise should engage in the study of civil law, as there is no greater discipline in the Torah, and it is like a flowing spring. 

The project of diving into civil law enables us to think in nuanced ways about parts of our life experience that we often don’t question — owning things, buying and selling, signing contracts. Throughout, the rabbis continually remind us that all these laws are rooted in a belief that to be part of the Jewish community is to owe each other respect for our individual rights and property.

The post Summary of Tractates Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Two gardens, one above the other, and vegetables grew in-between:

Rabbi Meir says: The vegetables belong to the owner of the upper garden.

Rabbi Yehuda says: The vegetables belong to the owner of the lower garden.

Rabbi Meir explained: If the owner of the upper garden decided to remove dirt from his garden, no vegetables would grow here. 

Rabbi Yehuda explained: If the owner of the lower garden decided to fill his garden with dirt, no vegetables would grow here. 

Imagine a tiered garden, the upper portion cultivated by one gardener and the lower portion by another, with a cliff of dirt separating the two. The question is who owns any vegetables growing out of that vertical wall of dirt. Rabbi Meir argues that the accidental vertical garden belongs to the upper gardener, because he could theoretically remove his own soil and thereby cause that wall of dirt to disappear. In other words, because he controls that wall of dirt, he therefore owns the vegetables. But Rabbi Yehuda argues the vertical vegetables belong to the lower gardener for essentially the same reason — because there is nothing to stop the lower gardener adding fill to his garden, which would likewise diminish the dirt cliff. 

This brings us to an apparent impasse, but the mishnah offers two more answers to the dilemma:

Rabbi Meir said: Since the two of them can object to each other, the court considers from where this vegetable lives. 

Rabbi Shimon said: Any vegetables that the owner of the upper garden can stretch out his hand and take, those vegetables are his, and the rest belong to the owner of the lower garden.

Rabbi Meir says that since the soil nourishing the vegetables belongs to the upper gardener, so do the vegetables. Rabbi Shimon, however, says the produce is divided: The upper gardener owns whatever he can reach, and the rest belong to the lower gardener.

In the short Gemara that follows, which concludes this tractate, it at first appears that Rabbi Meir’s solution is accepted. Expanding on Rabbi Meir’s position, Rava asserts that no one doubts that the roots of the vertical vegetables, because they are contained in the soil belonging to the upper garden, belong to the upper gardener. The question is only whether the leaves, which project into the airspace of the lower gardener, belong to the lower gardener (because they occupy his space) or the upper gardener (because they are attached to his roots). 

Ultimately, however, Rabbi Meir’s solution is not accepted. Rather than side with his position favoring the upper gardener, the rabbis follow Rabbi Shimon, who offers a system for splitting the produce. In the final lines of Tractate Bava Metzia, this decision receives an unexpected imprimatur:

Efrayim the scribe, a student of Reish Lakish, says in the name of Reish Lakish: The halakhah is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Shimon.

They stated this case before King Shapur, and he said to them: Let us offer praise to Rabbi Shimon.

We have become accustomed to thinking of talmudic argument as a largely internal Jewish discussion. Talmudic debates are nearly always won or lost based on appeals to Jewish sources (biblical and rabbinic) or distinctly rabbinic modes of logic. While from time to time the rabbis acknowledge the power of extra-Jewish authority — most famously in Shmuel’s oft-quoted dictum dina d’malchuta dina, the law of the kingdom is the law — one senses this is largely because they have no choice. Yet, on today’s daf, it is the Persian King Shapur who has the final word, not only to this relatively circumscribed argument, but to an entire tractate. Even the language of the final lines pays homage to the non-Jewish monarch, using the Middle Persian word afrin for praise, rather than a more common Hebrew word such as shevach. 

Compared to Rabbi Meir’s position, Rabbi Shimon’s resolution has less to commend it in terms of logic. It makes more sense, from a rabbinic perspective, to take account, as Rabbi Meir does, of which gardener owns the soil in which the vegetables grow versus the space into which they extend. But Rabbi Shimon’s position has a certain common sense emotional appeal: The vegetables are a happy accident that come about between two established gardens, and so the intuitive answer is to share them. Likewise, the rabbis live in a world where rabbinic authority derives nourishment and sustenance from the soil of Torah, but Jewish life extends into the world of Persian authority, which fills the air. Ultimately, there must be a balance between the two.

Read all of Bava Metzia 119 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 26th, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 119 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rav says: Most of it was damaged. 

And Shmuel says: Four (handbreadths).

On the next daf, Bava Metzia 117, there is a strikingly similar mishnah:

If an olive press belonging to one person is built inside a cave, and a garden belonging to another person is planted on top of it, and the roof of the olive press broke, causing the garden to collapse inward, the owner of the garden may descend and sow below until the other one constructs for his olive press sturdy arches to support the roof, so that the owner of the garden can once again sow above him.

Once again, we have two individual domains, one stacked on top of the other — in this case a garden over an olive press. And, once again, the Gemara asks about the size of the collapse that is required for this rule to apply. And, once again, we are taught:

Rav says: Most of it.

And Shmuel says: Four (handbreadths).

Some translators — including Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, whom we usually follow — interpret Shmuel’s single word reply of “four” to mean cubits, which are larger than handbreadths (approximately 18 inches versus four inches). This perhaps has some merit because caves and gardens are generally larger than homes, so it would follow that the threshold for enacting this law would be a larger amount of damage. But, in my view, the Gemara that follows makes more sense if we interpret it as handbreadths, as Rashash and other traditional commentaries do.

The Gemara now has a technical dilemma: Given that we just learned about these two positions a few pages ago, it is reasonable to wonder why we need to restate Rav and Shmuel’s positions again here. Aren’t the cases similar enough that we can assume their answers from the previous page apply? But the Gemara insists tzricha, it is necessary. 

Tzricha is a technical term, one of many used by the Gemara to signal its readers that a particular form of argumentation will follow. A go-to guide for these terms is Yitzhak Frank’s Practical Talmud Dictionary, which in this case tells us that tzricha is a term that “introduces an argument that explains why two or more allegedly redundant points … are really necessary, since one point cannot be inferred from the other.”

The Gemara spells out how this works in our case: Had we only learned about their disagreement regarding the collapsed floor in the shared house, we might assume that Shmuel allows the tenant to move downstairs if the hole is only four handbreadths because people utilize their whole living space and even a modest sized hole is disruptive. But for planting, one can work around the hole, so Shmuel would concede to Rav in the case of the olive press. And if the dispute was only taught with regard to this case of the olive press, we might assume that Rav concedes to Shmuel in the case of the house for the same reason. Therefore, to make sure it is clear to us that the dispute is operative in both cases, the differing opinions are quoted as part of the discussion of both cases.

As our Daf Yomi adventure continues, it’s a good exercise to keep your eyes open for the term tzricha, in the original Aramaic, or in translation (“it is necessary”). When you encounter it, see if you can identify the apparent redundancy and figure out how the Gemara explains why both statements necessary. Doing so is one way to strengthen your talmudic mental muscles.

Read all of Bava Metzia 117 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 26th, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 118 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Today’s Gemara asks whether it’s acceptable to build back a structure that differs from the original building. We first tackle scenarios where the lower-floor resident wants to make improvements:

Rav Aha bar Adda says in the name of Ulla: In the case of a resident of the lower story who seeks to rebuild it with untrimmed stones (that are larger than the original hewn ones), the court listens to him. But if the house was previously built with large untrimmed stones and he now wants to rebuild it with smaller hewn stones, the court does not listen to him.

Increasing the size of stones used in building the first floor will increase stability for the upstairs neighbor, and therefore the court — which can issue building permits — will allow it. But if he seeks to rebuild with smaller stones which are less stable, the court will not permit it. Likewise:

If the house was formerly built with bricks, and he wants to rebuild it with girders, the court listens to him. But if the house was previously built with girders, and he now wants to rebuild it with bricks, the court does not listen to him. 

When it comes to bearing the weight of a second story, large beams are better than bricks, so the court will allow him to make this improvement as he rebuilds. However, if beams were used in the original house (which, one must note, nonetheless collapsed), switching to a weaker material is impermissible. And so on: He must use a species of wood as strong if not stronger than the original for his roof, and he may not increase the number of windows which will also make the building structurally less sound. And he may not raise the ceiling.

Rav Aha is looking out for the upper floor resident by making sure the first floor owner doesn’t do anything to compromise the safety of the second floor. And what about the upstairs neighbor’s rebuilding options? 

In the case of a resident of the upper story who comes to change the structure, and wishes to rebuild the upper story with hewn stones instead of large untrimmed stones, the court listens to him. But if he wants to change from smaller hewn stones and rebuild with larger untrimmed stones, the court does not listen to him.

It is the job of the second floor owner to make sure they do not put lots more weight on the lower floor. Everything Rav Ulla said in the first case for the lower resident? Flip it around. They may switch to lighter stones but not heavier ones, from girders to bricks, from a heavy wood to a lighter wood, and they may add more windows. There’s only one rule here that’s the same for both residents: they can both build lower, but not higher, than what was there previously. Eight foot ceilings cannot be extended upward, since whether this is done on the first or second floor, it can create instability for the other story.

The upshot is that the collapse of a building is often tragic but also an opportunity to build something new and possibly better. It’s great to make improvements, as long as the renovation doesn’t benefit one party at the expense of the other.

Read all of Bava Metzia 117 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 25th, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 117 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

A house and an upper story: If the upper story was broken and the owner of the house does not want to repair it, the resident of the upper story can go down and live below until the owner repairs the upper story for him.

Suppose a householder is renting out their attic, which has become unsafe. If the landlord refuses to make the attic habitable, the mishnah requires them to make room for the renter downstairs. 

The Talmud asks an important follow-up question: How damaged does the upper story actually have to be for the renter to become entitled to move in downstairs? The Talmud offers us two different answers: 

Rav says: Most of it was damaged.

And Shmuel says: Four handsbreadths. 

Why the distinction? 

Rav says: A person can reside partially on below and partially above. And Shmuel says: With a break of four, a person cannot reside partially below and partially above.

The question is whether a person can continue to reside in an attic when a significant hole of four handbreadths has developed in the floor. According to Rav, with a hole of that size, the solution is to store a few items downstairs and live partially on each level. But according to Shmuel, it’s not reasonable to live on both floors that way and as soon as the damage is significant enough that the renter needs to move some of their items downstairs, they should be allowed to fully move downstairs. Rabbi Isaac Alfasi says that the law follows Shmuel, so once a hole in the attic floor becomes larger than four handsbreadths, the renter has a case to move out.

The Talmud next explores the legal mechanism by which the renter moves downstairs.

Rather, Rav Ashi said: Where he said to him: I am renting to you this upper story, which is on top of this house. As he rendered the house as liened with regard to the upper story. 

According to Rav Ashi, when the owner of the house designated the upper story in the lease agreement, they were essentially establishing the lower story as collateral. That is the legal reason the renter can move in when a hole opens up in their floor. 

This whole sugya sets up what would be, in my view, a great premise for a sitcom: The renter, after all, has perverse incentives to be a terrible roommate so the landlord is driven to repair their attic. (Stay tuned for tomorrow’s daf, which explores the question of whether the landlord has to move out of their own quarters to make more room for the renter, so we can paint a fuller picture of what could one day be a hilarious television show.)

But on a deeper level, the debate between Rav and Shmuel may strike a nerve with modern debates over hoarding and decluttering, minimalist and maximalist lifestyles that have at their heart this basic question: What makes a home?

For Rav, home is a place to find adequate shelter, even if your belongings are elsewhere. For Shmuel, it’s more — it’s also the place you keep your things, the items you’ve collected during your life to help make your life easier, or that remind you of places and people you care about. And the mishnah and Rav Ashi remind us that a home may be all of those things, but it’s also a space established as yours by a legal system, and upheld as such by the principles and ethics of that system.

Read all of Bava Metzia 116 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 24, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 116 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

For the last few days, the Gemara has taken up the topic of laws governing a lender’s right to take collateral from a borrower in order to secure a loan. Today, the discussion turns to the rights of the widow in this regard. A mishnah on today’s daf states: 

With regard to a widow, whether she is poor or whether she is wealthy, one may not take collateral from her, as it is stated: “And you may not take the garment of a widow as collateral.” (Deuteronomy 24:17)

The Gemara identifies the author of this mishnah as Rabbi Yehuda and introduces a disagreement. 

Rabbi Shimon says: With regard to a wealthy widow, one may take collateral from her. But with regard to a poor widow, one may not take collateral from her, because you are obligated to return it to her, and you will thereby give her a bad name among her neighbors.

It’s important to recall that loans, in the Torah’s view, are usually a form of charity. Collateral protects the lender, but can increase the hardship of those forced to take a loan. To protect widows, who are known to be disadvantaged already, the Torah prescribes that they need not put up collateral. But while Rabbi Yehuda reads the Torah’s prohibition as applying to all widows, Rabbi Shimon thinks it applies only to poor ones.

How does he come to this conclusion? By reading a nearby verse from the Torah, Deuteronomy 24:13, which states that if a lender takes a garment as collateral from a poor borrower who has nothing else of value to offer as security, they are obligated to return it before sundown. Rabbi Shimon imagines a scene in which an impoverished widow has men coming to her house in the evening in order to return the garment she offered as collateral, and fears that she might become the subject of gossip by neighbors who may suspect her of unsavory behavior, including the suspicion that she has become a sex worker to help make ends meet following the death of her husband. The Siftei Chachamim, a 17th-century Dutch commentator on Rashi, suggests the gossipers might believe that she is having an improper relationship with the lender himself. 

So, which ruling wins out? Can collateral be collected from a wealthy widow as well as a poor one? The Gemara doesn’t tell us, but Maimonides does, and forcefully at that:

“Collateral may not be taken from a widow, whether she is rich or poor … This prohibition applies even when the court would supervise the matter. If a creditor takes such collateral, it must be returned, even against his will. If the widow admits the debt, she must pay. If she denies its existence, she must take an oath. If the security the creditor took was lost or was consumed by fire before he returns it, he is punished by lashes.” (Mishneh Torah, Creditor and Debtor 3:1)

According to the Rambam, not only should collateral not be taken from a widow at all — no matter whether she is wealthy or not — but if it is, it is forcibly given back and if something happens to prevent its return, the lender faces corporal punishment. 

In the end, the rabbis conclude that widows should never be put in the damaging position of having their belongings used as collateral. Even wealthy widows are understood to be vulnerable and in need of this protection.

Read all of Bava Metzia 115 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 23, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 115 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Today, we read a story about Rabba bar Avuh bumping into Elijah in a non-Jewish cemetery and taking advantage of the moment to ask — what else — a variety of legal questions, including one about debtors (which connects the story to the legal material we have been studying). Elijah answers the halakhic questions and then Rabba bar Avuh asks a more personal one:

Is not the master a priest? What is the reason that the master is standing in a cemetery? 

The Bible says nothing about Elijah being a priest, but some traditions imagine that he is. Priests are prohibited from coming into contact with the dead and so Elijah’s presence in a cemetery is alarming to Rabba bar Avuh. But here too Elijah offers a legal answer:

Has the master not studied the mishnaic Order of Tahorot? As it is taught in a beraita: Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai says that the graves of gentiles do not render one impure …

It’s difficult to judge the tone of this answer. Was Elijah expressing genuine surprise that Rabba bar Avuh had not studied this more arcane and difficult tractate? Or was he chiding him for not doing so? Either way, Rabba bar Avuh does not seem to take offense, but rather points out that he is not learned enough to be expected to know this material:

Rabba bar Avuh said to him: If I cannot be proficient in the (more commonly studied) four (orders of the Mishnah), can I be knowledgeable in all six?

Again, Elijah offers an answer that is deceptively simply:

Why?

Why is Rabba bar Avuh not more learned? Once again, it’s not clear if there is an edge of critique, or if this is just a straightforward question. Rabba bar Avuh answers simply that he has to work to support himself and his family so he does not have as much time to study as he would like. You might be surprised as to what happens next:

Elijah brought him (Rabba bar Avuh) into the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Remove your cloak, gather up and take some of these leaves lying around.” Rabba Bar Avuh gathered them up and took them. 

For the rabbis, the Garden of Eden is not just the primordial paradise, it is also the place where the righteous will spend their days when their time on earth has ended. As will soon become clear, even the leaves that have fallen from the trees in Eden have great value in the world of the living and, in giving Rabba bar Avuh access to them, Elijah seeks to provide him with sustenance so that he will be unimpeded in his studies. But as Rabba bar Avuh, his cloak bundled around a pile of leaves, turns to go, a heavenly voice cries out:

Who else consumes his World-to-Come like Rabba bar Avuh? 

Understanding that it is wrong to borrow from his portion of Olam ha-Bah (the World to Come) to support himself in Olam ha-Zeh (the present world), Rabba bar Avuh drops the leaves before he exits the garden. But, the Gemara reports:

When he brought his cloak back, he discovered that the cloak had absorbed such a good scent from those leaves that he sold it for 12,000 dinars and divided the sum among his sons-in-law.

Even the lingering aroma of Eden is enough to provide financial security for his family, allowing Rabba bar Avuh to turn his attention to the study of Torah. Talmudic tradition reports that he rose to become the exilarch and his teachings are recorded throughout the Talmud.

The story of Rabba bar Avuh’s encounter with Elijah offers hope to those facing the struggles of this world: Be on the lookout for Elijah who may come to lighten your burden and transform your life. Yet, in our world, where the mythical Elijah rarely materializes to support those who are struggling, perhaps we should take a different lesson: Be like Elijah and use what you have to help uplift someone who is in need of support. You might just earn your place in Olam ha-Bah by helping someone else fulfill their destiny in Olam ha-Zeh.

Read all of Bava Metzia 114 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 22, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 114 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

One who lends money to another, he may take collateral from him only by means of the court. And he may not enter the debtor’s house to take his collateral, as it is stated: “When you lend your neighbor any manner of loan, you shall not go into his house to take his collateral. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring forth the collateral to you outside.” (Deuteronomy 24:10–11)

By insisting that there must be a court-appointed agent, a mediator, between the two when it comes to collecting collateral, the rabbis of the mishnah limit the kinds of awkward and unbalanced interactions that can take place when one person owes another money and may not be able to pay it back immediately. And by forbidding one from entering the debtor’s house to collect the collateral, the rabbis teach that even one who owes money and is late paying it back is entitled to the dignity of privacy.  

The Talmud then asks how these two different laws — about a court-appointed agent and not entering the debtor’s house — are connected. After all, if the lender can’t personally collect the debt, then they obviously can’t enter the debtor’s house to do it! So then what is the mishnah’s second statement adding to the discussion?

But didn’t we learn that one who lends to another may take collateral from him only by means of an agent of the court, from which we can infer that by means of an agent of the court he may (even) enter and take collateral?

Maybe only the initial lender is prohibited from entering the borrower’s house to take collateral but the agent of the court can? The Talmud is ultimately going to reject this idea, and insists:

No, the agent of the court is like the creditor.

The agent, like the creditor, must stay out of the lender’s house and wait for the lender to bring out the collateral.

The Talmud raises a number of challenges to this idea, but none of these challenges take hold. It doesn’t matter who is actually coming to take the money or collateral; the very act of coming to take collateral makes you like the creditor, and so you are bound by the same obligation to wait outside for the borrower to bring out the collateral — a ruling then followed by the medieval halakhic codes. 

It’s worth noting that this respect for the privacy and space of the debtor has a cost. We can imagine a debtor who lies about how much they have in the house, or brings out inferior collateral, with real financial consequences for the lender. But the Mishnah, Talmud and later codes insist that the possibility of an unscrupulous debtor is the price we have to pay for a financial system that treats everyone — those who have money to lend and those who borrow it — with the dignity and respect of distance, privacy and the integrity of their home. 

The post Bava Metzia 113 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

If the laborer worked as a contractor (who is paid for a completed job rather than an hourly wage), does the prohibition on delaying payment apply?

Rav Sheshet says that the prohibition does apply. In other words, just as I must pay you promptly if I hire you at an hourly rate, so too must I pay you promptly if I hire you at a fixed cost for an entire project. A beraita that is quoted on our daf suggests that the answer to the question is bit more more nuanced:

With regard to one who gave their garment to a craftsman, and the craftsman concluded the work and notified the owner that the work was complete, even if the owner delays paying the craftsman from now until ten days henceforth, they do not violate the prohibition of delaying the payment of wages.

If the craftsman gave the garment to them at midday, then once the sun has set and the owner has not paid, the owner does violate the prohibition of delaying the payment of wages.

According to the beraita, the prohibition against delaying payments applies to contractors who are paid a fixed amount to complete a project and the timing of the payment is tied to receipt of goods, not the completion of the labor.

I wonder, however, what a dry cleaner or professional framer might have to say about this. I can only imagine their frustration toward customers who drop off clothes to be laundered or artwork to be framed and fail to pick them up in a timely manner. According to the beraita (and contemporary norms), the obligation to make timely payment does not apply to their business, that is, not until the owners come to pick up their items. 

If you’re asking why the rabbis do not require customers to pick up and pay for their items in a timely manner then you are asking a good question. And, while the Gemara doesn’t address this directly, it does hint at a potential answer: When an object comes into a person’s possession, the act of changing it may make them the owners of the item. We learned about this when we explored the obligation of thieves to return the item that they stole; if the thief alters an item they become its owner and, from that point forward, are obligated to make financial restitution instead of returning the item. 

While the manner in which a craftsman comes into possession of an object is above board, some talmudic rabbis hold that when the craftsman alters the item (e.g. frames a piece of art or engraves a metal utensil) they come to own it. And, when the original owner comes to collect it, they are, in essence, buying it back rather than paying for the work that the craftsman did. Because the craftsman’s ownership was temporary, the transaction between merchant and customer falls under the category of loans and is not subject to the prohibition against delaying payment.

On the other hand, the rabbis’ reasoning may be far more practical in that it is much easier for the rabbinic courts to step in and force someone to pay for a repaired item that they have already picked up than it is to require them to pick it up in the first place.

The post Bava Metzia 112 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

The Torah, too, has compassion for laborers working hard for minimal pay, ruling in Deuteronomy 24:14-15: “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow Israelite or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. You must pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it; else a cry to Adonai will be issued against you and you will incur guilt.”

The sentiment is echoed in Leviticus 19:13: “The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.”

Note that Deuteronomy prescribes that wages be given “the same day, before the sun sets,” while Leviticus says the wages should “not remain until morning.” Notice too that Deuteronomy makes clear this law applies to all low-wage workers, whether Israelite or non-Israelite, but Leviticus does not specify anything about the worker. A mishnah on today’s daf draws the following conclusion from this difference in phrasing: 

One who hires a gentile who resides in the land of Israel and observes the seven Noahide commandments is subject to the prohibition of: “On the same day you shall give him his wages,” but is not subject to the negative mitzvah of: “The wages of a hired laborer shall not remain with you all night until the morning.”

According to this mishnah, only those gentiles that accept upon themselves the seven Noahide laws the Torah believes are incumbent on all non-Jews (do not murder, do not steal, etc.) are subject to the timeline for payment given in Deuteronomy (same day), but not the law stated in Leviticus (before the following morning). The difference seems to be that gentile workers who do not accept the Noahide laws can be paid during the course of the night.

There’s another difference between the laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus: The former applies specifically to poor laborers, and the latter to all laborers. The mishnah doesn’t directly address this discrepancy, but the Gemara asks about it: 

And with regard to the first tanna (that is, the author of our mishnah), who does not address this verse of: “For he is poor,” what does he do with it? That verse is necessary to give precedence to a poor person over a wealthy person (if the employer does not have enough money to pay all his workers).

If a poor person and a wealthy person are both due their wages, the Gemara explains, the author of our mishnah would rule that the poor person takes precedence, both because the verse in Deuteronomy spells it out and because, presumably, a wealthy person can wait a little longer. 

Interestingly, the Gemara adds that if a poor worker and a destitute one are both due their wages, the poor person (who has comparatively more than a destitute person who has nothing) is actually paid first, since they would likely be too embarrassed to ask the employer for their pay and the destitute person is so down and out that they are not ashamed to do so.

Nowhere, however, is there any hint that a Jew should be paid before a non-Jew. Recognizing that a day laborer works hard for their money and should be paid on the day they earn it no matter how they worship is the righteous culmination of this discussion, and a just application of this mitzvah in the centuries that follow. 

Read all of Bava Metzia 111 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 18, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 111 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Today’s daf quotes a beraita that explores what this law actually means in terms of timing.

The sages taught: From where is it derived concerning a day laborer that they collect all night? The verse states: “The wages of a hired laborer shall not remain with you all night until the morning.” (Leviticus 19:13)

We might have read the biblical verse to mean that the employer must pay at the end of the day, but the beraita says employees have the entire night to collect payment. An employer is not in violation of biblical law unless they haven’t paid by the next morning. But of course, not everyone works the day shift: 

And from where is it derived concerning a night laborer that they collect all day? As it is stated: “On the same day you shall give him his wages.” (Deuteronomy 24:15)

When the book of Deuteronomy lays out its employment laws, largely repeating what is written in Leviticus, it does not refer to the night but “the same day” — which the sages take to mean that one who works the night shift has all day to get paid. This apparently extends the window of payment the Torah has in mind, but only by half a day.

Notice that the biblical text addresses the employer, the one who is obligated to pay on time. The assumed audience for these laws is people with at least enough money to hire other people to do some of the work that needs doing. But the beraita addresses the workers themselves, those who have the right to collect the payment in a timely fashion. The beraita’s audience is the hired, not the hirers, who are likely to be lower on the socio-economic scale than their employers. 

I don’t want to overread this distinction. The Talmud is going to continue its discussion by focusing in on the obligations (and liabilities) of employers: 

Why does the verse state: “Until the morning”? It teaches that he transgresses (the prohibition of withholding payment) only until the first morning alone. From that point forward, what is it? Rav said: He violates the prohibition of “Do not delay.” Rav Yosef said: What is the verse? “Do not say to your neighbor: Go and come again, and tomorrow I will give, when you have it with you.” (Proverbs 3:28)

As this rabbinic discussion reminds us, the biblical commands are aimed at the employers, and so it is the employers who are punished for violating these laws. The employee may be left without money, but the employer’s transgressions come with their own, divinely mandated costs. 

But let’s go back to the beraita for a moment. The beraita paints a picture of an expansive rabbinic community, one which crosses class and economic lines. This community is one in which not only the (relatively wealthy) can sit and study the Oral Torah to ensure that they are living as God intends. In speaking to those who collect wages, not those who pay them, the beraita recognizes the dignity and intellectual abilities of employees and their own investment in living righteously according to God’s vision of the world laid out in the Torah. And that’s a world with real potential to be characterized by justice.

Read all of Bava Metzia 110 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 17, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 110 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rav Yosef said: Until now I had to deal with only one person; now there are five. Until now they did not rely on each other to plant the trees and did not cause me a loss, but now that they are five they will rely on each other to plant the trees and cause me a loss. 

When he only had to deal with one contractor, Rav Yosef was confident that the work would get done. But now that there were five planters in the business he is not so sure. Rav Yosef worries that each of the sons-in-law will assume one of the others is planting the trees and none of them will show up to complete the work. Fearing financial loss, he decides to find someone else to do the work.

In breaking the news that he is ending their contract, Rav Yosef makes the five sons-in-law an offer and a threat:

If you take the value of your enhancement that you brought to the field and remove yourselves, all is well, but if not, I will remove you without giving you the value of the enhancement.

In other words: Leave in a timely manner and take with you (in produce) the value of the enhancements that your late father-in-law made to the property. If you don’t, I’ll force you out and give you nothing. In making this offer, Rav Yosef relies on a teaching of Rav Yehuda (some say it was Rav Huna and others say it was Rav Nahman): 

With regard to this planter who died, his heirs may be removed without receiving the value of the enhancement.

Rav Yosef’s offer to pay the five sons-in-law for the enhancements to the property, albeit a short term one, is generous. But before we have a chance to commend him for going beyond what he is legally required to do, the Gemara informs us that this is not correct, but then neglects to tell us what the law is. Some commentators suggest that the mistake was instead an attributional one. Others suggest that Rav Yosef fabricated the teaching himself as a way to motivate the men to take his offer and move on.

These commentators may be correct as the law in this matter follows an earlier rabbinic text, Tosefta Bava Metzia 9:6, which says that when a person contracts to work the field of another and subsequently dies, the field’s owner cannot demand payment from the inheritors for any benefits they received from the land (because the person did not complete the work that they agreed to complete, so any benefit they acquired is an ill-gotten gain), nor can the heirs demand full payment for their father’s work as it was not complete. Rather, they evaluate the improvements that the dead person made to land and the owner is required to pay the heir an amount equal to the value of the improvement.

In the end, Rav Yosef’s offer was in line with the law, but his threat to send the planters home with nothing if they did not leave quickly and of their own accord was not. If he made that threat based on an erroneous teaching that he had indeed been taught, his actions are understandable. But if he fabricated the teaching to force the others of his land, then he abused his power.

Read all of Bava Metzia 109 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 16, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 109 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Rav Yehuda says: All participate in the payment for the construction of the city wall, and this sum is collected even from orphans, but not from the Torah scholars. The Torah scholars do not require protection, as the merit of their Torah study protects them from harm. 

According to Rav Yehuda, everyone — from the poorest orphans on up — is required to contribute to a town’s defense budget, with one notable exception: Torah scholars. Why? The Gemara trusts that Torah scholars generate enough divine goodwill that this alone will keep them safe from harm. As a result, they don’t need the safety that a city wall affords and don’t have to pay for it. Talk about putting your fate in God’s hands!

Interestingly, the Shulchan Aruch adds a more detailed rationale: Some communal projects require people to devote physical labor to the effort but allow individuals to buy their way out of sweat equity. In the case of building a wall, however, Torah scholars are exempt from the underlying obligation — out of a concern that this sort of labor would debase them — and therefore don’t need to pay.

On the other hand, public utilities appear to be a different story:

By contrast, money is collected for the digging of a river or a well for drinking water, even from the Torah scholars.

Torah scholars need to help pay for the water grid because, as Rashi notes, they drink water. As Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya has it in Pirke Avot 3:17: ein kemach, ein torah — without sustenance (literally: flour), there is no Torah. Therefore, scholars contribute to the community’s water infrastructure.

But here too there’s a limitation, largely in line with the secondary rationale articulated above:

And we said this halakhah only if the town’s inhabitants do not go out in a crowd to perform the work themselves but pay workers to act on their behalf. But if they go out in a crowd, Torah scholars do not have to join them, as Torah scholars are not among those who go out in a crowd to perform work in public view.

Once again, the Torah scholar’s obligation extends only so far as financial duty. They are not expected to do physical labor “in public view” — presumably, because this would be undignified for them. Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and other later writings lay out additional perks that accrue to a Torah scholar. Among other things, they’re exempt from chipping in for a gift to a king, they get priority in selling their wares in the marketplace and they jump to the head of the line when presenting their case in court. 

What are we to make of these exemptions for rabbis? Are these simply scholars taking advantage of their status and position to exempt themselves from communal contributions they find inconvenient or distasteful? (They wouldn’t be the first.) Or is it the case that Torah scholarship is of such vital benefit to the entire community that safeguarding the dignity of its purveyors is of benefit to all?

Read all of Bava Metzia 108 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 15, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 108 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Within the context of Deuteronomy 7, the two parts of the verse function as a doublet, a biblical way of saying the same thing twice for poetic effect. The sickness we are protected from is all the dreadful diseases encountered in the land of Egypt. But as we might now expect, the rabbis of the Talmud insist that each word in the Torah teaches its own unique idea. So on today’s daf, the rabbis ask what is the unique idea being taught by the promise that God will protect us from sickness, which wouldn’t also be covered by the second part of the biblical verse. 

The Talmud offers five different answers to this question: 

Rav says: “This is the eye.” Rav conforms to his line of reasoning, as Rav went to a graveyard, and did what he did and said: “Ninety-nine by the evil eye, and one by natural means.”

Rav apparently reads the first half of the verse as promising divine protection from the evil eye, a malevolent force that causes both interpersonal and personal harm. If those who obey the covenant are protected from the evil eye, that’s a huge deal for Rav, because apparently, after performing some kind of necromancy in a graveyard, Rav came to believe that 99% of deaths were caused by the evil eye. 

Rav’s colleague, Shmuel, offers a different interpretation: 

And Shmuel says: “This is the wind.” Shmuel conforms to his line of reasoning, as Shmuel says: “Everything is because of the wind.” 

The ancient world was rife with beliefs that certain winds (often the north wind) were particularly harmful or associated with demonic forces. So it’s possible that Shmuel is suggesting some kind of harm that speaks to a cultural belief most readers today don’t share. But it’s also possible that he’s noting the effects of harsh winds and weather on human lives. 

Rabbi Hanina says: “This is the cold,” as Rabbi Hanina says: “Everything is at the hands of Heaven, except for excess cold and heat, as it is stated: Cold and heat are on the path of the perverse; he who guards his soul shall keep far from them. (Proverbs 22:5).” 

Rabbi Hanina offers a fascinating take on God’s divine omnipotence, a world in which God controls everything except extreme weather. And Rabbi Hanina reads Deuteronomy 7:15 as requiring Israel to obey the covenant to help prevent extreme weather. An early statement about the responsibility of each of us to address the climate reality of our times!

The last two interpretations are more rooted in the organic realities of the human body: 

Rabbi Yosei bar Hanina says: “This is discharge,” as the Master says: “Discharge of the nose and discharge of the ear — much of it is harmful, but a bit of it is beneficial.”

Rabbi Elazar says: “This is the gallbladder.” This is also taught in a beraita: “Sickness — this refers to the gallbladder. And why is it called sickness? It is because it makes a person’s entire body ill. Alternatively, sickness because 83 diseases are dependent on the gallbladder. 

Eighty-three is the numerical value of the Hebrew word mahala, sickness.

Each of these rabbis believes that if we follow the covenant we will be protected from all the diseases of Egypt and from some other thing. While I can’t speak to the medical effectiveness of their strategies, I do appreciate their recognition that bodies are complicated and hard to understand, and that a small sense of control over the uncontrollable can help us all live a little more comfortably in the world.

Read all of Bava Metzia 107 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 14, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 107 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Scenario #1:

What the owner said to the tenant, “Plant wheat,” and the tenant planted barley. Most of the valley was wind blasted, and the barley was also wind blasted, what is the halakhah? Do we say that the tenant farmer can say to him, “Even if I had planted it with wheat it would likewise have been wind blasted, as all the surrounding fields suffered the same fate”? Or perhaps the owner can say to him: “Had you planted it with wheat, the following verse would have been fulfilled for me: And you shall decree a matter and it will be established for you, and the light shall shine upon your ways. (Job 22:28)”

The Gemara answers that we blame the tenant: If they had planted wheat as instructed, the field might not have been destroyed by wind.

Scenario #2: 

What if all the fields of the owner were wind blasted and this among them, but the majority of the valley was not wind blasted …

In this case, the owner’s fields are destroyed, both those farmed by this tenant and those that are not, even as neighboring fields owned by others are not destroyed. We might conclude that the owner is obviously to blame, yet the Gemara concludes:

If the tenant suggests that the owner’s fields were ruined because of bad fortune, the owner can reply that some should have remained, in that case, following Jeremiah (42:2): “For we are left but a few from many…”

The owner, in response to the tenant’s claim that it is just really bad luck, can argue, along the lines of Jeremiah, that if that were the case, some should have remained. Instead, the tenant remains liable. The verse from Jeremiah describes a remnant that remains in the wake of war with Babylonia. After another scenario examining why this verse doesn’t apply to the tenant, we learn the following: 

Scenario #3:

What if the tenant didn’t plant crops at all (and other crops were destroyed in fields that were planted) …

The owner could say, “If you had planted crops, perhaps my merit would have allowed the verse in Psalms (37:19) to be fulfilled: “They will not be shamed in the time of evil, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.” 

This argument is rebutted, however, because the tenant could reply, “If you were worthy of a miracle, a miracle would have occurred…”

While some of these cases seem theologically straightforward, others leave room for ambiguity. The biblical verses cited build a rather complicated worldview. One of the verses used in this sugya comes from the Book of Job, a story in which God (at the behest of Satan) tests the righteous Job to see if he will continue to be righteous when all good things are taken from him. This book famously struggles to understand a world in which good people suffer disproportionately to their wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the quotation from Jeremiah, indicating that even in a disaster God does not take everything away, is (in context) a plea rather than a promise. Likewise, the quotation from Psalms is an entreaty — as is much of the Book of Psalms. What we are left with, both in these complicated scenarios and the rich prooftexts brought to answer them, is a sense that we can’t always explain natural disaster in terms of people’s merit. The only reasonable response may be to turn to God with questions, and with entreaties.

Read all of Bava Metzia 106 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 13, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 106 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

With regard to prayer and with regard to tefillin, the measure is four kav.

At first glance, this statement seems quite odd. A kav is a unit of volume equivalent to 24 eggs; four kavs are a little more than a gallon. It makes sense to talk about olives or flour in terms of kavs, but who measures prayer by volume? Thankfully, the Gemara provides a beraita to bring some clarity to the teaching:

What is the relevance of this measure with regard to prayer? It is taught in a beraita:  With regard to one who carries a load on his shoulder and the time for prayer arrives, if the load is less than four kav, they lower it behind them and pray. If the load is four kav or more, they place it on the ground and pray.

If you are traveling while carrying a burden and it’s time to pray, you are supposed to stop to do so. If you’re carrying a small load, you can take it down off your shoulder and hold onto it while you pray. But if it has a bulk of four kav or more, you should set down your burden to prevent it from interfering with your concentration while you pray. 

Regarding tefillin, a second beraita is cited: 

If one was carrying a load on their head and they had phylacteries on their head, if the phylacteries were being crushed under the load it is forbidden to leave them on their head, but if they were not being crushed, it is permitted. 

Tefillin come in pairs; one for the arm and one for the head. While in the modern day Jews wear tefillin for weekday morning prayers, in talmudic times some adopted the practice of wearing them all day. If you’ve ever had to carry a bulky item while simultaneously wearing tefillin then you are aware that these ritual items were not designed with labor in mind. Their straps are strong enough to hold them in place during prayer, but would interfere with carrying large packages from one place to another. 

The head tefilla (the singular for tefillin) is a box that contains parchment with biblical verses that is affixed to one’s head by a leather strap. If one were simultaneously wearing tefillin and carrying a load on one’s head, not only would the tefilla potentially get in the way, but the pressure from the load might damage it. To prevent this from happening, a person is allowed to remove the tefilla. And what size load is the threshold for doing so? Four kavs.

There is, however, another proposed solution: If one is wearing tefillin and has to carry a bulky load, Rabbi Hiyya suggests securing the head tefilla to the arm to prevent it from being damaged or soiled. And the sages of the school of Sheila demand even greater precaution: 

It is forbidden to place on the head of one who is wearing phylacteries even the scarf in which they are wrapped. 

Forget about four kavs, according to the school or Sheila you can’t put anything on top of your head tefilla, even the bag (or scarf) in which you store it! 

What began as a confusing statement turns out to offer some intuitive and practical advice for prayer: Don’t pray with a bulky load in hand; set it aside before you begin. And when you are wearing tefillin, make sure that you don’t carry anything that will disrupt or damage them.

Having quoted the school of Rabbi Yannai on another matter, the Gemara shares an additional teaching from the school that is unrelated to the previous discussion:

With regard to prayer and with regard to tefillin, the measure is four kav.

At first glance, this statement seems quite odd. A kav is a unit of volume equivalent to 24 eggs; four kavs are a little more than a gallon. It makes sense to talk about olives or flour in terms of kavs, but who measures prayer by volume? Thankfully, the Gemara provides a beraita to bring some clarity to the teaching:

What is the relevance of this measure with regard to prayer? It is taught in a beraita:  With regard to one who carries a load on his shoulder and the time for prayer arrives, if the load is less than four kav, they lower it behind them and pray. If the load is four kav or more, they place it on the ground and pray.

If you are traveling while carrying a burden and it’s time to pray, you are supposed to stop to do so. If you’re carrying a small load, you can take it down off your shoulder and hold onto it while you pray. But if it has a bulk of four kav or more, you should set down your burden to prevent it from interfering with your concentration while you pray. 

Regarding tefillin, a second beraita is cited: 

If one was carrying a load on their head and they had phylacteries on their head, if the phylacteries were being crushed under the load it is forbidden to leave them on their head, but if they were not being crushed, it is permitted. 

Tefillin come in pairs; one for the arm and one for the head. While in the modern day Jews wear tefillin for weekday morning prayers, in talmudic times some adopted the practice of wearing them all day. If you’ve ever had to carry a bulky item while simultaneously wearing tefillin then you are aware that these ritual items were not designed with labor in mind. Their straps are strong enough to hold them in place during prayer, but would interfere with carrying large packages from one place to another. 

The head tefilla (the singular for tefillin) is a box that contains parchment with biblical verses that is affixed to one’s head by a leather strap. If one were simultaneously wearing tefillin and carrying a load on one’s head, not only would the tefilla potentially get in the way, but the pressure from the load might damage it. To prevent this from happening, a person is allowed to remove the tefilla. And what size load is the threshold for doing so? Four kavs.

There is, however, another proposed solution: If one is wearing tefillin and has to carry a bulky load, Rabbi Hiyya suggests securing the head tefilla to the arm to prevent it from being damaged or soiled. And the sages of the school of Sheila demand even greater precaution: 

It is forbidden to place on the head of one who is wearing phylacteries even the scarf in which they are wrapped. 

Forget about four kavs, according to the school or Sheila you can’t put anything on top of your head tefilla, even the bag (or scarf) in which you store it! 

What began as a confusing statement turns out to offer some intuitive and practical advice for prayer: Don’t pray with a bulky load in hand; set it aside before you begin. And when you are wearing tefillin, make sure that you don’t carry anything that will disrupt or damage them.

Read or print all of Bava Metzia 105 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 12, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 105 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

One who receives a field from another and lets it lie fallow, (the court) appraises it by how much it was able to produce, and he gives (his share of this amount) to the owner. This is what (a cultivator) writes to the owner: If I let the field lie fallow and do not cultivate it, I will pay with best-quality produce.

On Bava Metzia 94, we learned that the rabbis ruled that in order for stipulations in a contract to be valid, the condition must be stated prior to the action. Here, a contractor writes an agreement with the action (letting the land lie fallow) stated before the condition (paying what the field should have yielded with best quality produce). We would expect then that the rabbis would consider this contract invalid, but that’s not what happens. The rabbis rule that the stipulation is valid and require the contractor to pay what the field would have produced had it been cultivated.

Rabbi Meir would expound (in) common language. As it is taught: Rabbi Meir says (he is liable to pay, as the document states): If I let the field lie fallow and do not cultivate it, I will pay with best-quality produce.

Curiously, Rabbi Meir says here that the contract is valid, even though previously he ruled otherwise. Why is that? 

To explain, the Gemara employs the term lashon hedyot, common language or layman’s terms. Rather than throw out the contract, Rabbi Meir lets it stand because he recognizes that this is how regular people do business. And in fact, the definitive medieval law code the Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 42:15) spells this out, noting: “We follow any language that is often in used documents, even if it was not an institution of the rabbis but a language that the common-folk use in that locale.”

Several other cases are then brought in which a rabbi expounds in common language. Here’s one example: 

Hillel the Elder would expound common language, as it is taught: The inhabitants of Alexandria would betroth their wives (a great deal of time before the wedding), and at the time of their entry to the wedding canopy, others would come and snatch the women. The sages consequently sought to establish the children as mamzerim. 

As we’ve learned previously, the rabbis consider betrothal tantamount to marriage. If a betrothed woman conceives a child with someone other than her fiancé, that child should be considered a mamzer, a child born of an adulterous union, with consequences not only for the child, but for all generations to follow. In Alexandria, brides would be kidnapped just before the marriage ceremony and the rabbis assumed rape would follow. If this isn’t terrible enough, the sages also ruled that the children born afterwards should be considered mamzerim. 

The sage Hillel seeks to mitigate this ruling:

Hillel the Elder said to (the children): Bring me your mother’s marriage contract. They brought him their mother’s marriage contract, and he found this was written in it: When you will enter the wedding canopy, be for me a wife. And therefore, these women did not cause their children to be mamzerim.

Faced with the children whose status is in question, Hillel asks them to bring their mother’s ketubah. Because the language of the contract states that the marriage is effected only after the woman enters the wedding canopy, which never happened, Hillel declares that the woman was not married at the time the children were conceived and therefore they are not the product of an adulterous relationship. Why would he rule this way? 

Consider that for much of his life, Hillel was himself an impoverished commoner. He first began to study Torah only at the age of 40. Once, lacking tuition money, he lay on the roof of the study hall to hear the lecture. As a man who spoke the language of rabbis and commoners alike, Hillel brought his whole self to the law. 

I like to think that he and the other rabbis who expounded in common language understood that while the rabbinic ideal might be preferable, a society is most fully served by supporting the practices of the common people without levying undue hardship. And isn’t that the very definition of justice? 

Read all of Bava Metzia 104 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 11, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 104 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

A new chapter of Bava Metzia begins with a mishnah that outlines the obligations of a person working someone else’s land

One who receives a field from another: In a location where those cultivating the land were accustomed to cut the produce, this one must cut it as well. Where they were accustomed to uproot the produce, they must uproot it. Where they were accustomed to plow the land after harvesting the produce, they must plow as well. All farming of the land shall be conducted in accordance with regional custom.

We’re talking about someone who cultivates another’s farmland — like a tenant farmer or sharecropper. One might have thought that it was up to this person to decide how to manage the land, but this is not so. Rather, they farm the land as is customary in their region of the world.

The mishnah reflects a more general concept in Judaism: the primacy given to minhag hamakom, or local custom. For example, if you visit a synagogue with a different liturgy than your own, the expectation is that you will participate according to the custom of that synagogue. Rabbi Shalom Morris explains how this plays out at Bevis Marks Synagogue, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in London: In public prayers, visitors are expected to follow the customs of the synagogue, but in private prayers they are encouraged to say whatever is customary for them. If a group of guests rents the synagogue for their own ritual, then Rabbi Morris encourages them to follow their own customs because even though it takes place in the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, the event is hosted by Jews from elsewhere. The principle of minhag hamakon, though on the surface simple, is actually complex in its application.

Likewise, while the mishnah on today’s daf seems to unambiguously state that one cannot diverge from regional custom when working someone else’s land, the Gemara adds nuance:

The mishnah teaches: “Where they were accustomed to plow the land after harvesting the produce, they must plow as well.” Isn’t it obvious that he cannot deviate from the custom? No, it is necessary for the situation of a place where the custom is not to weed the fields, and the one cultivating this field went and weeded anyway. Lest you say that he could say to the landowner: “When I weeded the field, I did so with the intention of not plowing it subsequently.” To counter this, the mishnah teaches us that the renter should have specified this intention explicitly to the landowner (beforehand).

While the prevailing custom dictates expectations for the tenant farmer, the text leaves significant room for compromise and conversation. The key is that the cultivator must speak to the owner in advance about their intention, then the two can peaceably agree to deviate from the local custom.

Read all of Bava Metzia 103 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 10, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 103 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Both Philo and the rabbis lived in multi-religious societies: Alexandria was home to worshippers of ancient Egyptian gods, followers of traditional Roman religion and, of course, Jews. Similarly, the rabbis of the Galilee lived alongside Christians and worshippers of Roman gods. As Elizabeth Shanks Alexander has argued, the mitzvah of mezuzah, therefore, wasn’t just a way of following God’s law — it was also a way to visibly mark a home as Jewish, and as a space where Judaism matters — for both other Jews and everyone else.

But just because a space is currently Jewish doesn’t mean that it will remain so. After all, people move. It’s that reality which today’s daf addresses: 

The sages taught in a beraita: If one rents out a house to another, putting up a mezuzah is the job of the renter. 

The mitzvah of mezuzah is incumbent upon the person living in the house, not the owner. That means it’s on the inhabitants to write (or buy) a mezuzah and hang it correctly. But just because the inhabitants have to pay for the mezuzah and hang it themselves doesn’t mean that they get to keep it:

And when he leaves, he may not take it in his hand and leave. But from a gentile, he may take it in his hand and leave. There was an incident in which a renter took his mezuzah and left, and he buried his wife and two sons.

If the owner is a Jew, the renter is required to leave the mezuzah in place when they leave. But if the owner is a non-Jew, the renter can take their mezuzah with them. It seems that keeping the mezuzah in place is more important than worrying about who paid for it, and the story of the renter who took his mezuzah and consequently lost his wife and sons chillingly emphasizes the enormous stakes of this rule. But it also raises a question: 

Is the incident cited to contradict (the last statement about taking the mezuzah from a home owned by a non-Jew)? Rav Sheshet said: It relates to the first clause (where the home is owned by a Jewish landlord).

Taking a mezuzah from a Jewish person’s home — even if it belongs to you — puts your immediate family at dire risk. But, Rav Sheshet reassures us, removing it from the home of a non-Jew is not a problem.

The Talmud doesn’t explain the reasons for the ruling, but commentators try to explain the rabbis’ thinking. Tosafot explains that one is forbidden to take down the mezuzah from a Jewish-owned home because demons will enter into a Jewish home without a mezuzah and live there, ultimately causing harm to its new inhabitants. According to Tosafot’s logic, demons don’t like to live in homes owned by non-Jews. 

It’s worth noting that a mezuzah scroll handwritten by a qualified scribe on animal parchment is not cheap, and that’s before you factor in the cost of an elegant case. If your home has more than one doorway, the price of fully outfitting it with mezuzot can be prohibitive. So a real consequence of this rule is that it is cheaper to rent from non-Jews than from Jews and therefore Jews are financially incentivized to rent outside their own community. Some later commentators address the financial problem by insisting that renters are required to leave their mezuzot in a Jewish-owned home but can demand compensation for the cost. Ultimately, if you’re in the process of moving and want to know the current Jewish legal position on whether you can take your mezuzot, it’s best to ask your local rabbi.

But whether today’s beraita is still in force or not, it offers us important insight into the dynamism of the rabbinic world where Jews and non-Jews lived next to each other and moved in and out of each other’s properties. Amidst that dynamism, the ritual of mezuzah defined certain spaces as distinctly Jewish, at least for a while.

Read all of Bava Metzia 102 on Sefaria

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 9, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 102 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.

Here’s the mishnah:

One who rents out a house to another in the rainy season cannot evict from Sukkot until Passover. In the summer, the landlord must give 30 days. 

There were basically two seasons in ancient Israel — the rainy season, which runs from Sukkot until Passover, and the summer season, from Passover until Sukkot. One cannot evict a tenant at all during the rainy season. If they rent from you, they are allowed to stay until the season is over. In summer, mid-season evictions are allowed, but with 30 days notice.

Why would the mishnah differentiate between winter and summer rentals? The Gemara explains: 

In the rainy season … houses for renting are not found.

In other words, the 30-day policy should be the case for rainy-season rentals as well, but the housing market dries up during the rainy season, and landlords cannot push out their tenants during a time when they have nowhere to go.

A beraita provides the same protection to landlords:

Just as a landlord needs to give notice, so too a renter needs to give notice. 

The Talmud recognizes that there are extraordinary circumstances in which it makes sense to set this rule aside. For example,

If the house fell down, the landlord can say to them: You are no better than me.

Out on the street because their home has collapsed, a landlord can evict tenants from a rental property with no notice at all. Because no matter what happens, one of the two will be out of a home and the renter does not deserve the home more than the landlord does. Rather, it is the landlord who owns the property and thus has a stronger claim to it than their tenant, who is merely paying to use it. 

These laws all seem sensible and fair and, barring unforeseen disasters, should provide for smooth relations between landlords and tenants. But as the following anecdote suggests, when bad actors try to take advantage of the law, extra-legal solutions are needed:

A certain man purchased a boat laden with wine. He was unable to find a place to store it. He said to a certain woman: “Do you have a place to rent to me?” She said to him: “No.” He went and betrothed her, and she gave him the place to bring his wine. He went back to his home and wrote a bill of divorce for her, which he then sent to her. 

Unable to secure a lease on a storage facility from a woman, the man offers her his hand in marriage. Once betrothed, she gives him the lease that he sought. As soon as his wine is safely tucked away, he calls off the marriage. And how does she respond?

She went and hired porters, paying them from the wine itself, and instructed them to take it out and put it on the road. 

Using a portion of the wine as payment, the woman hires a crew to remove the barrels from her property and dump them on the road. The man then takes her to court seeking compensation on the grounds that acquiring the lease during the brief betrothal was legit. Should the woman want to now terminate it, she should have to give him notice. But that’s not how the judge sees it:

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said: “Like he did, so shall be done to him, his repayment shall come back on his head.”

Rav Huna is wise to recognize that while the woman is required to give at least a year’s notice before she can terminate a lease, the law does not provide for the justice she deserves. Given that he took her into his household only to dump her after he got the storage space he wanted, it’s more than justified that she did the same to his wine. Although the law is technically on the man’s side, he is hard pressed to find a judge to enforce it.

Read all of Bava Metzia 101 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 8, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

The post Bava Metzia 101 appeared first on My Jewish Learning.