Tractate Bava Batra Archives | My Jewish Learning

Bava Batra 176

Rachel Scheinerman — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 18:56:03 +0000

Yesterday, on the penultimate page of Bava Batra, we encountered the final mishnah of the tractate, in which Rabbi Yishmael stated that if a guarantor comes on board after a loan is made, the creditor cannot collect from the guarantor’s liened property. Rabbi Shimon ben Nannas insisted the law is in fact more stringent: The creditor cannot collect anything from the late-signing guarantor; it’s as if the guarantor said nothing. Ben Nannas explained why: Imagine a creditor strangles someone who owes them money and a bystander steps in with an offer to guarantee the loan. This offer is obviously made only to save the debtor’s life and so the guarantee is not regarded as binding — and, by extension, every guarantee that comes after the ink on the loan dries is also not binding.

The mishnah ended with exuberant praise for Ben Nannas and the entire project of studying monetary damages:

One who wants to become wise should engage in the study of monetary law, as there is no greater discipline in the Torah, and it is like a flowing spring. And one who wants to engage in the study of monetary law should attend to Shimon ben Nannas.

This has the makings of a beautiful end to the entire tractate — a surprise ruling followed by an ode to subject matter and teacher. Leave it to the Gemara to slip in a final word that reverses it:

Rabba bar bar Hana says that Rabbi Yohanan says: Although Rabbi Yishmael praised Ben Nannas after hearing his dissenting opinion, the halakhah is actually in accordance with Rabbi Yishmael’s opinion.

Rabbi Yishmael praised Ben Nannas for his brilliant analysis. But in truth, his hypothetical scenario does not prove his position. In Ben Nannas’ example, since the bystander had reason to believe the creditor would kill the debtor, the guarantee was made under extreme duress. Of course, in that case, the courts will not hold the guarantor to his word! But in most cases, a late guarantee is not a heroic, spontaneous salvo to save a stranger’s life. Most cases are more mundane, so when someone simply comes to guarantee a loan after the money has already been lent, Rabbi Yishmael still considers the guarantee binding.

But what would Rabbi Yishmael say about the rather extraordinary case Ben Nannas dreamed up?

Come and hear, as Rabbi Yaakov says that Rabbi Yohanan says: Rabbi Yishmael disagreed with Ben Nannas also in the case of the debtor being strangled.

Even in the case of a debtor being strangled and a good Samaritan guarantor reaching out with his wallet to save a life, Rabbi Yishmael thinks the debt can be collected from him. But can he really believe this? Rabbi Yehuda steps in to explain, citing Shmuel:

If the debtor was being strangled, and in addition an act of acquisition was performed with the guarantor, the guarantor becomes obligated to repay the debt.

Rabbi Yishmael holds the good Samaritan guarantor accountable for the loan if he not only verbally makes the guarantee but also performs an act of acquisition. From here, we learn that in most cases guarantors do not have to perform an act of acquisition. This gives us the final lines of the tractate:

And the halakhah is that a guarantor who accepts responsibility for the loan at the time of the giving of the money does not require an act of acquisition; but if he accepts responsibility after the giving of the money, he requires an act of acquisition.

Moreover, a guarantor who undertakes a loan guarantee in the presence of a court does not require an act of acquisition, as in return for that gratification that he experiences in that the court trusts him, he resolves to obligate himself.

After a loan has already been made, a would-be guarantor must do more than verbally promise to make good on the debt. He must also perform an act of acquisition or make his declaration in the presence of a court. This formal setting and the company of legal expert minds impresses the situation with seriousness and formality, and confers binding status on the words of the guarantor.

This is a subtle but fitting close to the last 410 pages of what used to be called Tractate Nezikin and is now called Tractates Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra. Taken together, these tractates form the foundation for Jewish civil law, offering an in-depth exploration of how injured parties are made whole after accidental or intentional harm, as well as the ins and outs of renting, loaning, care-taking, borrowing, inheriting and returning lost objects. A great deal of attention is also given to making sales and contracts proper and legally binding.

Through it all, the court plays an important role — much larger than we’ve seen in other tractates so far. In all these cases, stakes and emotions are high and it is likely that people will not be able to resolve their differences on their own. To run properly, the community needs a trusted arbiter to solve conflict. It is the court, and therefore the rabbis, who fill that role.

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Bava Batra 175

cloos — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 17:53:45 +0000

On the penultimate page of Bava Batra, we encounter the final mishnah of the tractate, from which we learn that if a creditor comes to collect a debt from a guarantor who did not guarantee the loan until after the loan agreement was signed, the creditor can only collect from properties that do not carry a lien.

The mishnah closes with an incident in which Rabbi Yismael ruled according to this teaching, but Rabbi Shimon ben Nannas tells him that he was in error. According to Ben Nannas, if a guarantor enters the picture after a loan agreement is signed, their guarantee is no guarantee at all and the creditor cannot collect from them. Rabbi Yishmael asks how this can be, so Ben Nannas offer the following hypothetical:

If one was strangling someone in the marketplace, demanding repayment of a loan, and another person found him and said to the attacker: “Leave him alone and I will give you the money he owes,” — the person who intervened is exempt from paying, as the creditor did not loan the money in the first place based on his trust of the one who intervened.

If a bystander steps in with an offer to guarantee a loan in order to protect a debtor from imminent physical harm, as in the unlikely but persuasive example above, or even if they did so only to provide financial protection, Ben Nannas argues, they are not liable to pay. For the guarantee to be enforceable, says Ben Nannas, it must be a part of the original agreement.

Impressed by this explanation, Rabbi Yishmael exclaims:

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

And one who wants to engage in the study of monetary law should attend to Shimon ben Nannas.

With these statements, Rabbi Yishmael brings the final mishnah of Bava Batra to a close, and brings us to the end of Tractate Nezikin — the original super tractate that was later divided into Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra due to its length. Although the study of monetary law can be challenging, it sharpens the mind and sustains the student.

As we prepare to turn to the final page of Bava Batra, let’s take a moment, as Rabbi Yishamel did, to reflect upon the knowledge and wisdom that we gained and express appreciation for the commentators, teachers and study partners who guided us through some of the Talmud’s most taxing material. May it continue to nurture us as an ever flowing spring.

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

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Summary of Tractates Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia and Bava Batra

Rachel Scheinerman — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 15:45:42 +0000

Originally, Bava Kamma, Bava Metzia, and Bava Batra were one single (very long) tractate called tractate Nezikin. Only in the medieval period did scribes start to break tractate Nezikin into three sections or “gates” (bava means gate in Aramaic) — probably simply because the tractate was so long. Indeed, Bava Batra, the third of the set, is still the longest tractate in the entire Talmud.

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.

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Bava Batra 174

cloos — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 18:12:42 +0000

Today’s daf discusses two types of debt guarantors: a standard guarantor and an unconditional guarantor. If a person acts as a standard guarantor on behalf of a debtor, the creditor may collect from the guarantor only if the debtor has no property to collect on. In contrast, a creditor may collect from an unconditional guarantor at any time, regardless of the debtor’s circumstances.

What creates each of these types of guarantees?

Rav Huna says that if one says to a potential creditor: “Lend money to him and I am a guarantor,” or, “Lend money to him and I will repay the debt,” or, “Lend money to him and I am obligated to repay the debt,” or, “Lend money to him and I will give the money back to you,” — all these are expressions that confer the status of a standard guarantee.“Give money to him and I am an unconditional guarantor,” or: “Give money to him and I will repay the debt,” or, “Give money to him and I am obligated to repay the debt,” or, “Give money to him and I will give the money back to you,” — all these are expressions that confer the status of an unconditional guarantee.

Catch the pattern? It doesn’t matter so much which words the guarantor uses to express their intention to repay the debtor, but rather what verb they use for the action of giving the loan. If they instruct the creditor to “loan” the money to a third party, then they are offering to act as a standard guarantor. But if they instruct the creditor to “give” the money, then they have set themselves up as an unconditional guarantor.

Because it’s the Gemara, you know there’s going to be a wrinkle:

A dilemma was raised before the sages: What is the halakhah if one says: “Lend money to him and I am an unconditional guarantor?” What is the halakhah if one says: “Give money to him and I am a (standard) guarantor?”

When a speaker says “lend” — a verb specifically associated with a standard guarantee — but indicates he’s an unconditional guarantor, what is he? And, similarly, if he says “give,” but then clearly expresses he intends to be a standard guarantor — how do we rule?

Rabbi Yizhak offers his opinion:

When one employs the language of a standard guarantee, it is a standard guarantee, even if he also used the word “give.” And when one employs the language of an unconditional guarantee, it is an unconditional guarantee, even if he also used the word “lend.”

According to Rabbi Yitzhak, the guarantor’s self-description as “unconditional guarantor” or “guarantor” supersedes the verb he uses. But Rav Hisda and Rava return to Rav Huna’s original pronouncement of what language creates which type of guarantee and challenge it from two different directions:

Rav Hisda says: All of the expressions mentioned in this discussion are expressions of an unconditional guarantee, except for: “Lend money to him and I am a guarantor.”

Rava says: All of the expressions mentioned in this discussion are expressions of a standard guarantee, except for: “Give money to him and I will give the money back to you.”

These are relatively extreme, contradictory statements, with Rav Hisda considering nearly everything to be an unconditional guarantee and Rava declaring nearly everything to be a standard guarantee. We are now left with a panoply of positions and the Talmud offers no more analysis or further discussion, so we’re not even sure of the reasoning behind each rabbi’s stances.

And, we have an even more extreme stance posed:

Mar bar Ameimar said to Rav Ashi: My father said the following: If one says: “Give money to him and I will give the money back to you,” this expression binds the guarantor to such an extent that the lender has no claim against the debtor at all.

This position — that a statement with this phrasing completely insulates the debtor from any obligation for the debt and places responsibility solely on the shoulders of the guarantor — proves to be a bridge too far for the Gemara:

But that is not so. Rather, the debtor is not exempted from dealing with the creditor unless the guarantor takes the money from the creditor and gives it to the debtor with his own hand.

There is a way for a guarantor to be solely responsible for the debt, but it requires him to acquire the money from the creditor and then give it to the debtor, acting as a literal middleman. And while words are powerful enough to create some kinds of guarantees, words alone aren’t enough in this instance.

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Bava Batra 173

cloos — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 18:08:16 +0000

The Gemara on today’s daf analyzes a mishnah from yesterday’s page about what to do if two people in town have the same name, which poses a challenge for writing and verifying legal documents:

If there are two people who were living in one city, one named Yosef ben Shimon and the other also named Yosef ben Shimon, one cannot present a promissory note against the other. Nor can another present a promissory note against either of them.

And if a document is found among one’s documents stating: “The promissory note against Yosef ben Shimon is repaid,” then the promissory notes of both of them are considered repaid.

According to the first clause of the mishnah, if two people have the same name, then they cannot borrow money, either from one another or from anyone else, because of the legal confusion this might create. According to the second clause of this mishnah, if both the Yosef ben Shimons in the same city owed the same creditor money, and a document is found with that creditor saying Yosef ben Shimon repaid his debt, both debts are forgiven, as it’s not possible to determine which of the two repaid his debt. It is preferable to fail to collect money due rather than extract money from someone who doesn’t owe it. The Gemara comments:

The reason is that this note was found among his papers; but if it was not suddenly found, he could present a promissory note against one of the men named Yosef ben Shimon and collect the debt from him. But didn’t we learn earlier in the mishnah: Nor can another present a promissory note against either of them?

The Gemara has detected an apparent internal contradiction in the mishnah. The specificity of the latter portion, in which we state that when a document is found after some time the creditor can’t collect, implies that if the creditor had a promissory note for one of the Yosef ben Shimons that he was in constant possession of and never forgot about, then he could collect the debt. But earlier in the mishnah, it stated that when two people have the same name, a promissory note can’t be used to extract money from either of them! How do we square the implication of this final clause with the earlier ruling in the mishnah?

Rabbi Yirmeya said: This later line in the mishnah is stated with regard to a promissory note in which the debtors’ names are tripled.

Rabbi Yirmeya resolves our dilemma by narrowing the scope of this later clause to a case where the promissory notes of the Yosef ben Shimons also contained the names of their grandfathers, thereby distinguishing them. But this raises a fairly obvious problem:

But let us see in whose name the receipt is written!

If the names are “tripled” and therefore distinguishable, why would both of their debts be considered repaid? Shouldn’t it be eminently clear now who still owes money and who has repaid their debt?

Rav Hoshaya said: The case is where the debtors’ names are tripled in the promissory note, but the names are not tripled in the receipt.

Rav Hoshaya neatly resolves the issue: The promissory notes each contained the names of the Yosef ben Shimons’ grandfathers, such that the two of them were distinct and these notes could theoretically be used; however, the receipt that’s been found merely lists “Yosef ben Shimon.” Even though the original documents were usable, since we now are uncertain which Yosef ben Shimon repaid his debt, both of them are canceled.

Today, identical names still happen, but we have many other ways of distinguishing individuals in a legal context without relying on names of grandfathers or distinguishing physical features. It’s hard to envision having no way of clarifying the distinction between you and someone who shares your name; but at the time of the mishnah, this clearly posed a distinct legal problem. Nonetheless, it would not have been fair or sustainable for people with the same names to be excluded from borrowing money, so the rabbis manage to find solutions, albeit imperfect ones.

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

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Bava Batra 172

cloos — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 19:30:27 +0000

When writing a legal document, small details can end up having a big impact. The recorded time and place, for example, may seem formalistic, but these are used to authenticate a sale and the decision to use one date or another, or one place or another, can have far-reaching implications.

Today’s daf concludes a discussion about how to properly date a document of acquisition:

Rava bar Rav Sheila said to those who wrote deeds of acquisition: When you write deeds of acquisition, if you know the date of the acquisition, write it, and if not, write the current date to avoid the semblence of dishonhesty.

One should not, in other words, approximate a date of acquisition, as this can later be called into question and may appear false. Even if it seems more accurate to write the date a sale occurred, if one cannot be certain it’s correct, that opens the document up to the appearance of forgery.

This discussion is followed with a similar discussion about recorded place:

Rav said to his scribe, and Rav Huna also said to his scribe: When you are writing a document in Shili, write “Shili,” even if the matters were given over to you in Hini; if you are writing a document in Hini, write “Hini,” even if the the matters were given over to you in Shili.

Even if the transaction took place in another city, Rav advises, one should always record the city where the document was written. Some commentators understand a similar motive to be at work here: One writes the place where the document is being signed in order to avoid any errors that could lead to a suspicion of dishonesty.

Tosafot notes that Hini and Shili were actually geographically proximate, and people frequently travelled back and forth between them. By using them for this example, Rav underlines the importance of recording the exact place the document was signed. If the document was written in Hini but the acquisition took place in Shili, if the document says Shili, someone could come and say, “It says Shili, but you were in Hini that day!” To avoid such a scenario, Meiri suggests adding both places: “We are signing in Hini today about what happened in Shili.”

Ra’aviah, a medieval German scholar, suggests that the concern here is not avoiding the semblance of dishonesty but, should this document wind up in court, making it easier to track down the witnesses who signed it, as they would be known in that town and presumably even live there. This makes the location recorded in the document a practical consideration.

None of the commentators think that dating a document according to the date of a transaction, or listing the place of the transaction, instead of the date and place at which the document was signed, automatically invalidates a document, but they are concerned this practice leaves it open to question and may create a bureaucratic burden. Even if most of the time the only advantage is avoiding the appearance of falsehood, this too is good for business: One’s reputation for avoiding any type of deceit creates trust, essential for making the types of deals these documents allow.

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Bava Batra 171

cloos — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 19:20:18 +0000

Yesterday, we read a dispute in the mishnah between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei about what to do if a debtor makes a partial repayment. Rabbi Yehuda stated that the creditor should tear up the original IOU and write a new one for the amount remaining. Rabbi Yosei insisted that the original IOU stands, and the creditor is required only to give the debtor a receipt for the amount that they have already paid. The mishnah makes it sound like the two have a heated personal debate about the issue, which, as we learned yesterday, is resolved by a third (and much later) party, Rav, coming up with a compromise position.

We get another version of that debate today. A beraita on today’s daf explains:

As it is taught: If 1,000 dinars are owed by him, and he repaid 500 dinars out of it, the witnesses tear the note and write another note for him, from the time of the first. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda.

Rabbi Yosei says: This note shall remain in its place, and they write a receipt.

The beraita presents two opinions in this case, from the same two rabbis in the mishnah. Rabbi Yehuda, once again, thinks that a partial repayment requires a new, replacement IOU to be written. But so that we don’t think that this is a new loan, the IOU is backdated to the date of the initial loan. In contrast, Rabbi Yosei, once again, thinks that the original IOU stands, and a receipt for what has just been paid is given to the borrower so that they can prove at least partial repayment. So far, this debate maps really neatly onto yesterday’s discussion. But the Talmud’s discussion of the beraita is going to offer us some new insights.

The Talmud explains why Rabbi Yosei insists that we keep the original IOU:

And there are two reasons why he said that they write a receipt: One, so that the creditor can coerce him to repay him. And one is so that he, the creditor, should be able to collect property from the first date.

Rabbi Yosei seems to think that having an IOU with the original, larger sum would pressure the borrower to repay their loan more quickly. The medieval commentator Rashbam adds that the borrower might fear that they will lose their receipt and then be taken to court to repay the entire initial sum — added incentive to repay the loan as quickly as possible. (If your paper files are anything like mine, you know this fear is all too real.)

Rabbi Yosei’s second reason is that having the original date of the loan on the IOU will allow the creditor to collect anything that the borrower owned from the initial date if they are not repaid on time. That’s a strange rationale, because Rabbi Yehuda, who thinks we write a new promissory note, also thinks we put the original date of the loan on the new IOU. So this second explanation is not really a point of disagreement between the two rabbis, and doesn’t prove that one position is better reasoned than the other.

The Talmud also recognizes that Rabbi Yosei’s second reason is a bit strange in context.

But doesn’t Rabbi Yehuda also say “from the time of the first”? This is what Rabbi Yosei is saying to Rabbi Yehuda: If you say “from the time of the first,” I disagree with you on one count. If “from the second date,” I disagree with you on two.

Apparently, Rabbi Yosei doesn’t actually know Rabbi Yehuda’s position. And so the Talmud imagines him insisting that he disagrees about writing a new promissory note in general, and reserves the right to disagree again if Rabbi Yehuda also thinks that note should be dated to the date of the partial repayment instead of the date of the original loan.

Rashbam suggests that Rabbi Yehuda was not clear in articulating his full position. The modern commentator Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz thinks that Rabbi Yosei just didn’t hear the second part of Rabbi Yehuda’s statement.

But there is a third possibility: This dispute highlights the ways that many of the Talmudic discussions between rabbis are constructed by later editors or redactors, who compiled and arranged traditions into a rich textual dialogue. Perhaps Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei don’t know each other’s positions because they were never actually in oral conversation about this issue. Instead, students preserved their teachings, and generations later, these teachings were juxtaposed into an imagined dialogue between the esteemed sages. That kind of post-facto juxtaposition sometimes requires later rabbinic insight and creativity to understand what each person is saying and how it relates to the other’s statement. After all, it’s no simple task to construct a representation of hundreds of years of discussion, transmission and interpretation.

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Bava Batra 170

cloos — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 19:02:41 +0000

Today’s daf raises the question of documentation in a case in which someone pays back a portion of a loan. Here’s the mishnah:

In the case of a debtor who repaid part of his debt, Rabbi Yehuda says: The creditor should exchange the promissory note for a new one stating the current balance and tear up the first promissory note.

Rabbi Yosei says: The creditor may keep the original promissory note, and he should write a receipt for the payment he has received and give it to the debtor as proof of his partial payment of the sum recorded in the old note.

Rabbi Yehuda said: It is found that this debtor must now guard his receipt against being destroyed by mice (as if he no longer has the receipt, he will have to pay the entire sum recorded in the promissory note).

Rabbi Yosei said to him: This situation is fitting for him.

Let’s say Rachel loans Leah $100 and gives her a promissory note for the full amount. A month later, Leah pays Rachel back half of the debt: $50. According to Rabbi Yehuda, the onus is on Rachel, the lender, to exchange the old promissory note for a new one stating that the amount now owed is $50. Rabbi Yosei disagrees, arguing that Rachel can keep the original note while providing Leah with a receipt that confirms partial payment.

Rabbi Yehuda, whose primary concern seems to be for the debtor, doesn’t like this solution, since the onus is now on Leah to prove that she has already paid back half the loan to Rachel. What if the receipt is eaten by mice, or otherwise destroyed (in my case, by spilling any one of my emotional support beverages on it)? If the only document remaining is in Rachel’s possession, and it’s for the original amount, she might try to collect the full amount and Leah would have no recourse.

Rabbi Yosei, however, whose primary concern seems to be for the creditor rather than the debtor, has no problem with this plan. He even suggests that mice chewing up the receipt might be a kind of cosmic justice for Leah making only a partial payment.

It’s up to the Gemara to reconcile these two views, ensuring that the lender is paid back in full while protecting the borrower from overpayment.

Rav Huna says that Rav says: The halakhah is not in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda, nor is it in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei. Rather, the halakhah is that the court tears up the original promissory note and writes a different promissory note for the creditor, listing the new sum owed, dated from the time of the first document.

Rav, perhaps seeing flaws with both positions in the mishnah, offers a third solution. He rules that the court should destroy the original note and write a new one for the balance, backdated to when the loan was originally made, and leave it with the creditor rather than the debtor. This option will presumably alleviate the debtor’s fear that she’ll have to prove she has already made a partial payment. It also puts the onus on the court, a neutral entity, to write the new document. Tomorrow, we’ll learn that another reason the court is brought in is because they have the power to confiscate the money if it’s being withheld.

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Bava Batra 169

cloos — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:58:28 +0000

The Talmud holds that if a deed of land sale goes missing, a court is allowed to issue a replacement copy. This is good news for the buyer — mostly. But there are strict limits on what the replacement deed can say. Rav Nahman explains:

Our (replacement) deed is not intended to enable the collection of reimbursement in event of repossession, neither collection from liened property that has been sold nor collection from unsold property; rather, it is intended merely to ensure that the land is established in the possession of the purchaser.

In a replacement deed, the court is not permitted to state anything about a guarantee that was issued by the seller to compensate the buyer in case the land was later repossessed by creditors. The replacement deed, therefore, might not protect the buyer as well as the original deed.

It doesn’t seem like the rabbis to create vulnerability needlessly. Indeed, that is not Rav Nahman’s intention at all. Here’s what happens next: Based on the fact that the court has to stipulate that their deed does not imply a guarantee, Rafram concludes that Rav Nahman holds that such a guarantee is a standard element of an agreement to purchase land. Further, this means that should a regular deed not mention a guarantee, we can assume that its omission was a scribal error and we can enforce the guarantee should the land come to be repossessed. Ironically, by not including the guarantee in replacement deeds, the court makes such a guarantee universally enforceable.

But Rav Ashi rejects this argument. He holds that guarantees against repossession must be stipulated in deeds of sale. If one is not present, we cannot assume there was a scribal error; rather, we should take the document at face value.

Instead of launching a talmudic disputation that seeks to resolve the disagreement between Rav Nahman and Rav Ashi, the Gemara shares an anecdote about a particular incident that came before the court:

There was a certain woman who gave money to a certain man to act as her agent and purchase land for her. The agent went and purchased land for her, but without a guarantee. The woman brought the matter before Rav Nahman.

In this case, Rav Nahman rules in favor of the woman who is upset that her deed of sale includes no guarantee, reasoning that an agent is responsible to act for the benefit of the person that they represent. Purchasing land without a guarantee is risky at best, so Rav Nahman rules that the sale is nullified.

This case suggests that a guarantee is a standard part of a land purchase agreement and the agent who fails to secure one is derelict in his duties. The Gemara says nothing further about the dispute between Rav Nahman and Rav Ashi, however. The story appears to give a nod to Rav Nahman’s position, which is accepted by later legal commentators.

Rav Nahman, however, is not yet done with this inept agent. Although the woman has been saved from a transaction that left her open to financial loss, she is also left without the property that she hoped to purchase. To rectify this, Rav Nahman orders the agent to go and purchase the property himself without a guarantee and then to sell it to the woman with a guarantee — leaving himself open to the exact financial risk that he had previously accepted on her behalf.

This ruling forces the agent to make the situation right for the woman. Is it punitive? Perhaps. And maybe it is also designed to make an example of this incompetent agent, and remind agents everywhere of the seriousness of their role. The later legal commentators approved of Rav Nahman’s actions in this case and they incorporated it into their codes as well.

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Bava Batra 168

cloos — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:49:41 +0000

We’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about written contracts and the language that makes them effective and valid. On yesterday’s daf, the mishnah turned to a more practical concern: paying the scribe. Because while contracts often set up new kinds of financial agreements, it frequently takes a financial agreement to get a contract written.

When it comes to documents of divorce and receipts for the return of a woman’s ketubah money, for example, the mishnah states:

The husband pays his wages.

The mishnah states that the husband is responsible for paying the scribe who writes the documents that effect a divorce and confirm that the ketubah money has been returned to the woman. On today’s daf, the rabbis interrogate that statement.

What is the reason? As the verse states: “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it comes to pass, if she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some unseemly matter in her, he shall write her a scroll of severance and give it in her hand.” (Deuteronomy 24:1)

Deuteronomy permits divorce, and puts the power to initiate a divorce in the hands of the husband who is assigned all the active verbs: He writes the document and gives it to his wife. Therefore, if the man chooses to outsource writing to a scribe, he must pay their wages. This reading of the biblical text seems reasonable.

But the Talmud continues:

Today we do not do so, and the sages placed the (financial) burden upon the woman, so that he should not delay.

Even though a close reading of Deuteronomy suggests that the man is in charge of all components of a biblical divorce, including paying scribal fees, the Talmud goes in a different direction and insists that it is the woman who must pay the scribe for her document of divorce. The Talmud explains that if a man wishes to be divorced but is stingy, he may put off giving his wife an actual get, keeping her in limbo — stuck in an unhappy marriage that has ended in all but name, but unable to move on. To prevent a man’s cheapness from making his wife an agunah, the Talmud puts the burden of paying for the get on the woman.

It’s difficult to know how to interpret this decision. On the one hand, this measure may prevent men from making excuses not to go through with a divorce. On the other hand, it puts a financial burden on a woman who has not yet received her ketubah payout, and may not have other income. And there’s a question of fairness here: After all, if all the power lies in the hands of the husband, why can’t the court just coerce him to give a divorce rather than shift some of the responsibility to his wife?

This teaching is a troubling one, without an easy interpretation. While I don’t know how to solve the questions that it raises, I will note that the complexity of this tradition continues into the medieval period. Moses Maimonides and Joseph Caro, for example, follow the Talmud and insist that a woman must pay the scribe for her get. However, the medieval rabbis of Ashkenaz take a different approach. Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, in his 13th-century Sefer Mitzvot HaGadol, writes that women are permitted to pay the scribe if their husband refuses, in order to facilitate a speedy divorce. Similarly, 13th-century German scholar Mordechai ben Hillel writes that a woman is permitted to pay the wages of the scribe, “if she wants, in order not to remain an agunah.” These rabbis uphold the talmudic principle while building in agency for the woman.

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Bava Batra 167

cloos — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:04:26 +0000

In this chapter, we have already explored many requirements for documents that are meant to prevent forgery. Alas, forgery is common enough, and forgers clever enough, that the list of possible sneaky maneuvers seems endless. On today’s daf, the discussion continues with this rule:

Abaye said: With regard to this one who needs to show his signature in court, he should not show it by writing it at the top of the parchment, lest another person find the parchment and write above the signature that the signatory owes him money — because such a document would be valid, as we learned in a mishnah (Mishnah Bava Batra 10:8): If one presents to a debtor a document in the handwriting of the debtor stating that he owes money to him, the creditor can collect only from unsold property.

When ratifying a document, the rabbinic court must ratify the signatures of each witness. If both witnesses are alive, this is fairly straightforward: Each can attest to their own signature. But if one of the witnesses has died, the court requires two people to testify regarding the signature of the deceased witness. The living witness could theoretically be one of the two who testify to the deceased witness’s handwriting. However, the rabbis were reluctant to hang so much testimony in the ratification process on one person. The solution: the surviving witness can send the court a sample of his own handwriting, which serves evidence rather than testimony. This means the surviving witness is no longer testifying to their own signature. Now, they can join another person to testify about the handwriting of the deceased witness.

While the solution is clever, Abaye is worried about the security of a document that’s merely blank parchment with a signature on it — the ancient equivalent of a blank check. If the witness signs at the bottom, someone could easily scribble an IOU above and, according to the mishnah quoted above, this would stand up in court. Therefore, the recommendation is to sign at the top of the parchment. Since witnesses always sign below the text, there is no room to slip in a forged note.

Did anyone actually try this trick? Apparently so. The Gemara now recounts:

There was a certain Jewish tax collector who came before Abaye and said to him: Let the master show me his signature, as when rabbis come to me and show me it, I let them pass without paying the tax. Abaye showed him his signature at the top of the parchment, though the tax collector kept pulling the parchment away. Abaye said to him: The sages have already anticipated people such as you.

Since rabbis were exempt from certain taxes, and Abaye was one of the most prominent scholars in Babylonia at the time, the tax collector used Abaye’s signature to verify the exemption. However, after requesting that Abaye produce this signature, the apparently unscrupulous tax collector repeatedly yanked at the parchment so as to unroll it further and create space above Abaye’s signature. Abaye assumes that he did so in order to create a space in which to forge a document.

Today’s daf relays several more rulings, each followed by a story in which an attempted forgery is foiled. Thieves are creative; and so must be the laws to keep the public safe.

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Bava Batra 166

cloos — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 17:57:45 +0000

The dinar is a unit of currency that was in wide circulation during the rabbinic period — and still today, in a handful of Mediterranean countries. In the Talmud, there are two different plural forms for the word dinar: dinarei and dinarin. For the purposes of understanding contract law, the Gemara on today’s daf asks: Are these simply two plural forms of the same word, or is there a difference in meaning? To answer this question, the rabbis turn to a mishnah in tractate Keritot.

Mishnah Keritot discusses the sacrifices that one has to bring after committing different kinds of sin, or becoming ritually impure through childbirth or genital discharge. Neither childbirth nor genital discharge are considered sins, but they make the person experiencing them ritually impure, and someone who is ritually impure cannot eat from sacrificial meat until they have been returned to a state of purity — a process that often includes making required sacrifices at the Temple.

Though Mishnah Keritot doesn’t have its own dedicated tractate of Talmud, we do get to read talmudic discussions of some of its mishnahs in other contexts — like today’s discussion of the plural forms of the word dinar. Mishnah Keritot 1:7 reads:

A woman for whom there was uncertainty with regard to five births, or uncertainty with regard to five irregular discharges, she brings one sacrifice, and she may partake of sacrificial meat. And the remaining are not an obligation for her.

When it is uncertain whether someone gave birth, or whether a particular vaginal discharge counts as an irregular discharge, rather than bring one sacrifice for each uncertain event, the woman can bring one offering and become ritually pure. But if we are certain there were five events that lead to impurity, it’s a different story:

If she has had five definite births or five definite discharges, she brings one offering, and then she may partake of offerings. But the remaining offerings are still an obligation for her.

Each definite birth or discharge requires its own sacrifice at the Temple. The first offering is enough to allow this woman to eat sacrificial meat, but doesn’t exempt her from afterward bringing the other four.

Or at least, that’s how things used to be. The Mishnah explains how this rule was changed:

There was an incident where nests (containing sacrificial birds for sale) cost golden dinarei in Jerusalem. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: I swear by this abode of the Divine Presence that I will not lie down tonight until they cost dinarin.

We can imagine that people who didn’t live in or near Jerusalem would have saved up all their purification sacrifices to offer at once when they finally make it to the holy city. With limited supply, and a huge demand, the great Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel sees that the cost of birds has become outrageous. If birds are too expensive for the average person to purchase, then people won’t be able to perform the required sacrifices or to be in relationship with God in this way. So Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel finds a way to lower the demand:

He entered the court and taught: A woman for whom there were five definite births or five definite discharges brings one offering, and then she may partake of the meat of offerings. And the remaining are not an obligation for her. And nests stood that day at one-quarter (dinar).

On today’s daf, the rabbis use this mishnah to prove that there is a difference between dinarei and dinarin. Dinarei, according to Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel, are gold dinars with a very high value; dinarin are not made of gold and are therefore a much less valuable currency. The upshot: When writing a contract, it’s important to specify which is meant: dinarei or dinarin.

But let’s not overlook what is much more interesting about this mishnah in Keritot, in which a preeminent sage of his day changes the law to make Temple sacrifices more accessible to everyone. Curiously, the Mishnah doesn’t provide a halakhic rationale, an oral tradition or some other legal reason that Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel felt authorized to make this change. Instead, we get only a recognition of the inaccessible price, a strong vow to God and a public announcement in the court of law. It seems the practicality of ensuring that people can offer a sacrifice, even when five would be preferred, was reason enough.

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Bava Batra 165

cloos — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 18:01:16 +0000

Throughout the Talmud, we’ve encountered the principle of minhag hamakom, that rules vary by local custom. Today, we see that it applies to how witnesses properly sign a document:

With regard to an ordinary document whose witnesses wrote their signatures on the back of it, and a tied document whose witnesses wrote their signatures inside of it, both of these are not valid.

Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel says: A tied document whose witnesses wrote their signatures inside of it is valid, because one can transform it into an ordinary document by untying it.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: Everything is in accordance with minhag hamakom (regional custom).

We’ve already seen that there are critical differences between tied and untied documents: Tied documents are signed on the outside, while untied documents bear the signatures very close to the written text. And, as we’ll learn later on today’s daf, the former require three witnesses, while the latter require just two. But it seems that there was also variation in regional customs surrounding tied documents. The Gemara wonders:

And does the first tanna not accept that one should follow the regional custom?

The anonymous statement — ascribed to the first, unnamed tanna — invalidates untied documents where the witnesses signed on the back or tied documents in which they wrote on the inside. This conflicts with Rabban Gamliel’s statement of the general principle that regional customs supersede general practices in certain matters, and the Gemara is puzzled. Cue Rav Ashi to try to untangle this:

In a place where the custom is to write an ordinary document, and one said to a scribe: “Make an ordinary document for me,” and the scribe went and made a tied document for him, it is assumed that he was particular about wanting an ordinary document. Similarly, in a place where the custom is to write a tied document, and one said to a scribe: “Make a tied document for me,” and the scribe went and made an ordinary document for him, it is assumed that he was particular about wanting a tied document.

From this, we garner a basic rule: If there’s a local custom — whether tied or untied — and the requester specifies that they want the local custom followed, there’s an assumption that they’re being intentionally specific. In this way, Rav Ashi harmonizes the first tanna and Rabban Shimon’s views and homes in on the actual dispute:

Where the tannaim of the mishnah disagree is in a place where the custom is to write either an ordinary document or a tied document, and one said to a scribe: “Make an ordinary document for me,” and the scribe went and made a tied document for him. In such a case, one sage (the first tanna) holds that the one requesting the document was particular about wanting an ordinary document, and since the scribe wrote a tied document, it is considered to have been written without his consent. And one sage (Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel) holds that the one requesting the document was merely indicating his position to the scribe.

We find ourselves in a community where both untied and tied documents are customary. The requester has asked for an untied document, but the scribe wrote a tied document. Our anonymous tanna believes this document has been written without his consent and is therefore invalid, while Rabban Shimon finds the requester’s direction to be merely a preference.

Rabban Shimon’s position carries the day. Subtly, this adds even more weight to local custom, because in a place where local custom permits a different format, a scribe is allowed to interpret specific instructions as only a preference — which is kind of remarkable for the rabbis, who so often place great emphasis on precise wording.

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Bava Batra 164

cloos — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 18:50:24 +0000

In the midst of a discussion about being meticulous about the legal documents we produce, the Talmud takes advantage of an opportunity on today’s daf to remind us that the rabbis felt the same way about how we speak about one another.

There was a certain tied document that came before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: There is no date on this document, so it is not valid.

Rabbi Shimon, son of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, said to him: Perhaps the date is hidden between its tied folds.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi opened it and saw the date.

An ordinary rabbinic document is unfolded so all of its details are in plain sight. But, as we learned recently, the rabbis also permitted folded documents that hid many details. Without opening this particular folded document, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi declared it dateless, and therefore invalid. In contrast to the Mishnah (which he compiled) and the majority of his colleagues, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi did not approve of folded documents. This anecdote makes clear why: The date can be difficult to discern without unsealing the document.

Afterward, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi looked at his son disapprovingly. His son said to him: I did not write it; Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata wrote it. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to his son: Turn away from uttering this kind of malicious speech (lashon hara).

To his father’s disapproving look, Rabbi Shimon responds defensively, distancing himself from the folded document. This only upsets his father further. There was no need for Rabbi Shimon to throw Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata under the bus, and his father lets him know it.

This is not the only time in the Talmud that Rabbi Shimon gets in trouble for fingering Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata, and the Gemara takes advantage of this moment to tell us about others:

Rabbi Shimon was sitting before his father and reciting a section of the book of Psalms. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to him: How straight and neat is this writing in this book from which you are reading. Rabbi Shimon said to him: I did not write it; Yehuda Hayyata wrote it. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi told his son: Turn away from uttering this kind of malicious speech.

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi praises the work of the scribe who produced the scroll from which his son is reading, whereupon Rabbi Shimon credits Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata who produced this fine work. For doing so, he is rebuked in the same way he was before.

Wait just a minute, you might be thinking. In the first case, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi is displeased with the folded document and by naming Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata as the one who produced it, Rabbi Shimon sheds a negative light upon him. A clear case of lashon hara. But in the second case, Rabbi Shimon is giving credit to Rabbi Yehuda for his talent as a scribe — so why does he warrant the same rebuke? The Gemara explains:

Rav Dimi, the brother of Rav Safra, teaches: A person should never speak the praises of another, as out of the praise spoken about him someone may come to speak to his detriment.

It might be true that Rabbi Yehuda Hayyata had excellent penmanship and was a great scribe. Even so, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi warns his son, praising him provides an opportunity for others to disagree and disparage him. In this way, even words of praise can become lashon hara.

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Bava Batra 163

cloos — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 16:49:39 +0000

On yesterday’s daf, we established that any document with two or more blank lines between the end of the text and the witnesses’ signatures is invalid. The Gemara on today’s daf, in typical fashion, demands clarification:

A dilemma was raised before the sages: With regard to the two blank lines, which the sages said invalidates the document, does this refer to the lines with the space between lines added? Or is it perhaps without their spaces?

In all documents, there’s vertical space occupied by the letters themselves and additional vertical space between the lines — in typography, this is called leading — for legibility and to make room for occasional letters that extend above or below the others. It is clear that leaving a gap the width of two lines with typical spacing invalidates the document. But what if the gap is a bit narrower — the width of two lines without that typical spacing between lines? In other words, there is space for two lines of text tightly crammed above the signature.

Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak provides an answer:

It stands to reason that it is referring to the lines with their spaces. As, if it were to enter your mind that it is without their spaces, what is a line without its space fit for? Rather, one may conclude from this claim that the reference is to two lines with their spaces.

Recall that in the same beraita which taught that a document is invalid if it leaves space for two lines between the text and the signatures, we learned that a document with only a one-line gap is kosher. If this single line had no space around it, argues Rav Nahman, it would in fact be impossible to write anything in that space. In that case, the ruling would be so obvious it would not need to be stated. Therefore, we can safely conclude that the rule permitting a one line gap is referring both to the height of the line and the extra space that pads it. From here, we can infer that the impermissible two-line gap described in the beraita also includes the space taken up by two lines, as well as the padding around them.

You may be thinking: While today we can measure type size and leading with remarkable precision, rabbinic documents were written by hand — and not all people write letters the same size. So how do we measure whether the space is in fact wide enough for two lines of text with spacing? The Gemara has the same concern.

Rabbi Shabbtai says in the name of Hizkiyya: The gap of two blank lines, which the sages said invalidates the document, is measured by the handwriting of witnesses, and not by the handwriting of a scribe. What is the reason for this? Anyone who forges a document, would not go to a scribe and ask him to forge.

While we can’t account for all individual handwriting styles, Hizkiyya clarifies that line width is measured according to the handwriting of a normal, non-scribe — so we take our cue from the witnesses. The presumption is that scribes write smaller letters; however, we feel confident that an attempted forger, who wants to add additional content in the final lines of a document, would not go to a scribe to get this done, perhaps because they’d be afraid the scribe, whose livelihood depends on his reputation for integrity, would turn them down and turn them in. Therefore, if the two line-gap is small enough that only a scribe could write two lines of text within it, the document is still valid. And if John Hancock signs the document, there’s room for a comfortable gap without invalidating the document.

From here, the Gemara on today’s daf continues to examine how interlinear spaces are measured. As we often find, a seemingly straightforward statement — that any document with two empty lines between the end of the text and the signatures is invalid — can become incredibly intricate once we examine all the practical, particular concerns that will arise when trying to apply and adjudicate such a ruling.

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Bava Batra 162

cloos — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 15:28:37 +0000

Preventing forgeries has been a concern as long as there have been legal documents. On today’s daf, we learn two new stipulations for a kosher document that are designed to prevent fraud:

Rav Yitzhak bar Yosef says that Rabbi Yohanan says: For any erasures, the scribe must write at the end of the document: “And this is their verification.”

And the scribe must review some of the details of the document in the final line. What is the reason for this? Rav Amram says: It is because one may not learn any new details from the final line of a document.

The first anti-forgery requirement is straightforward: When a document has erasures and corrections, the scribe is required to list and verify them. Otherwise, there is a concern that someone might tamper with a completed document.

But the purpose of the second requirement — summarizing the document’s details in its final line — is less self-evident. Rav Amram explains that we summarize the document’s contents at the end because we’re not allowed to learn anything new from the last line of a document. But this doesn’t really explain how it prevents forgery.

Though Rav Amram has stated this confidently as a halakhah without citation, his fellow amoraim inquire after its source:

Rav Nahman said to Rav Amram: From where do you know this? Rav Amram said to him: As it is taught: If one writing a document distanced the witnesses’ signatures two lines from the text, the document is not valid; one line from the text, the document is valid.

Why do two blank lines make the document not valid (while with one blank line it is valid)? If you say that perhaps the holder of the document will forge information and write it in those lines, then in the case of one line left blank as well, he can forge information and write it in that line. Rather, conclude from the beraita that one may not learn any new details from the final line of a document.

A supporting beraita states that if there’s too much space (two lines or more) between the end of a document’s text and the witnesses’ signatures, the document is not kosher because there is a concern that someone will opportunistically cram additional conditions into that space after the document is signed. However, a single blank line between condition and signatures is acceptable. Why is this single space allowed? Because there is a law that the last line of a document cannot add new information. Therefore, that space can’t be used to forge a condition that wasn’t part of the original document, because even were one to write something there, we wouldn’t rule based upon it. In other words, the rabbis infer from the rule that we may not have two blank lines above the signatures of a document but that we can in fact have one that there was another rule, i.e. not acting upon any information in the final line of a document. Otherwise, this single blank line would not have been permitted.

Returning to Rabbi Yohanan, we see the rabbis develop the custom of summarizing the content of a document in its final line, i.e. “so and so lent ___ amount of money to so and so,” because if there isn’t a forgery and the final line contained any new and necessary information, we’d be unable to legislate it. Therefore, kosher documents should conclude with a summary of the content that came before.

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Bava Batra 161

cloos — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 18:12:34 +0000

What constitutes a valid signature? While most people sign documents with their full name, there are others who, due to illiteracy or disability, sign with a mark such as an X or a thumb print. According to the US National Notary Association, “under the law in every state, a signature can be any mark or symbol which the signer intends to serve as her or his symbol to authenticate the document.”

Similarly, the Talmud considers signatures that are symbols or letters valid. Today’s daf includes a passage with details that we have seen already twice before (Gittin 36a and Gittin 87b), which asserts that even some of the sages (who were of course literate) used symbols and letters rather than signatures.

It is known that Rav used to draw a fish as his signature mark, and Rabbi Hanina used to draw a palm branch, and Rav Hisda used to sign just the letter samech, and Rav Hoshaya used to sign just the letter ayin, and Rava bar Rav Huna used to sign his name by drawing a ship’s mast.

We know that these halakhic luminaries were literate, so why would they sign with doodles of fish and palm fronds? The Talmud doesn’t say, but later commentators speculate. Rashbam posits that Rav liked to eat fish and Rabbi Hanina enjoyed eating dates, and that’s why they signed with drawings of those specific items. The Maharshal explains that what Rashbam really meant is that these two rabbis employed symbols alluding to special mitzvot they kept in honor of Shabbat: Rav liked to serve a very large fish, and Rabbi Hanina went out of his way to obtain beautiful dates for his Shabbat table. Rav Ya’akov Emden, commenting on the parallel passage in Gittin 36a, suggests that Rav employed a fish because, as we learned on Bava Batra 118b, fish represent a good omen. Rabbi Hanina, he says, utilized a date palm to symbolize the verse in Psalm 92:13: tzadik ka’tamar yifrach — “the righteous will bloom like a date palm.” These signatures were not a sign of illiteracy, but the opposite: Deep engagement with the tradition.

What of Rav Hisda’s use of a Hebrew letter samech, or Rav Hoshaya’s employment of the letter ayin? Rav Emden posits that the samech symbolizes the word someach, or reliance, meaning one could rely on his signature. Meanwhile, the letter ayin, which literally means eye, symbolizes Rav Hoshaya’s commitment to seeing clearly, or investigating the validity of that which he was signing.

And what meaning can we attribute to Rava bar Rav Huna’s choice of a ship’s mast? That one remains a mystery.

These explanations are all lovely, but they still don’t answer the question of why these rabbis would use pictographs rather than traditional signatures. Perhaps the answer can be found back in the parallel text on Gittin 36a, where we read:

The sages are different, as everyone is well versed in their pictorial marks.

Perhaps like the artist formerly known as Prince, who changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, the sages’ marks were instantly recognizable, obviating the need for them to employ anything as mundane as a traditional signature.

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Bava Batra 160

cloos — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:49:28 +0000

The opening mishnah of the final chapter of Bava Batra says:

In an ordinary document, its witnesses are to sign inside it (on the written side of the paper). In a folded and tied document, its witnesses are to sign on the back of it.

The Gemara asks:

From where are these matters derived?

The Mishnah tells us what the law states but rarely the source from which the rules are derived. The Gemara, as it often does, opens its conversation by asking for a biblical verse in which to ground the Mishnah’s law. Rabbi Hanina has one in mind, Jeremiah 32:44: “They shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses.” He explains:

When the verse states, “They shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds” — this is referring to an ordinary document. When the verse states: “And seal them” — this is referring to a tied document.

In its original context, this verse imagines a future when the people of Israel will be restored to the land from which they have been exiled and feel a sense of permanence and comfort that allows them to buy and sell property. Rabbi Hanina suggests that it is also providing us with details about how these transactions should take place.

While Rabbi Hanina’s midrashic reading is similar to many others that the Talmud accepts, it’s set aside based upon the possibility that Jeremiah is giving higher-level sage advice — i.e., document your real estate transactions — rather than providing detailed instructions for how to sign those transactions.

Rafram presents an alternate verse, also from Jeremiah (32:11): “So I took the deed of the purchase, that which was sealed, the terms and conditions, and that which was open” (Jeremiah 32:11). Rafram suggests that:

When the verse states, “So I took the deed of the purchase” — this is referring to an ordinary document.

When it states, “That which was sealed” — this is referring to a tied document.

When it states, “And that which was open” — this is referring to the ordinary, unfolded part of a tied document.

Here too the Gemara rejects Rafram’s midrashic legal analysis of the verse because of the assertion that Jeremiah’s intention was to describe the events as they happened and not to establish a general legal precedent.

With no other verse in mind, the Gemara concludes that the source for this practice must be rabbinic rather than biblical. But why did the rabbis establish this rule, asks the Gemara?

There was a place where there were many priests, and they were very quick tempered, and they would seek to divorce their wives. And the sages instituted an ordinance that the bill of divorce for these people should be of the tied format, hoping that, meanwhile, their composure would be regained.

Priests are not allowed to marry divorced women, including those to whom they were married themselves. That means a priest’s divorce is irreversible. In a town of priests quick to anger and ready to divorce at the drop of a hat, the rabbis sought a way to slow down the process so that when these priests thought to rashly cast aside their wives, they would be forced to take a moment to return to their senses before completing the necessary documents.

And so the rabbis instituted the use of a folded and tied divorce document which takes longer to produce in order to help preserve the marriages of these priests. Not wanting to differentiate between bills of divorce and other documents, they instituted the same practice for other legal documents as well.

Is this truly the explanation for why the rabbis had both open and folded legal documents? There is no way to know for certain. What we do know is that the Torah does not describe what legal documents should look like and that the Talmud chooses not to see the origins of rabbinic practice in the verses of Jeremiah. I wonder what legal documents looked like in the Roman and Sasanian societies in which the rabbis lived and to what extent the norms of these worlds influenced Jewish practice. I imagine that they did. As I do, I also notice that the Talmud does not consider this to be a possibility, preferring an origin story that shows that the practice of tied and folded documents emerges to solve a uniquely rabbinic dilemma caused by a group of ill tempered priests.

Read all of Bava Batra 160 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 2, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

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Bava Batra 159

cloos — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:46:21 +0000

According to the rabbis, a man is not allowed to serve as a witness in a case involving a close relative, like a father, brother, son or direct in-law. This makes sense: A close relative is likely too invested in the outcome to be an unbiased witness. But today’s daf explores one particular edge case that shows just how strange this ruling can be.

One testified (in writing) with regard to another before he became that person’s son-in-law, and then he became his son-in-law.

When a man (let’s call him Isaac) testified about something involving another person (Bethuel, say), they were not yet related. But by the time the case comes to court, Isaac has married Bethuel’s daughter Rebecca, and now they are related. What is the court to do with Isaac’s written testimony?

He may not testify as to his handwriting. But others may testify.

If Isaac acknowledges in court that the written testimony was his, then he is actually serving as a witness for his father-in-law. But other people, like the court scribe, can presumably testify that they saw Isaac write out his testimony, and their testimony can be entered into the court record. Isaac’s testimony before his marriage can thus be used to support or damage Bethuel’s case, without Isaac being directly involved.

If Isaac is not deemed credible, then why are others deemed credible to affirm his testimony? After all, that affirmation is built on a belief that Isaac is an honest person who was telling the truth.

And what is the difficulty? Perhaps it is the king’s edict that he is not deemed credible, and others are deemed credible, and not that he is lying.

The Talmud explains that Isaac isn’t prohibited from testifying because he is thought to be lying but because of a “king’s edict” (stay tuned for more on what this is). And indeed, it can’t be that sons-in-law are all thought to be lying about or for their fathers-in-law, because some of the most important, honest and upright figures of Jewish history are still prohibited from testifying for their in-laws:

As if you do not say so, (were) Moses and Aaron (permitted to testify) for their fathers-in-law? Because their testimony is not deemed credible? Rather, it is the king’s edict that they shall not bear witness for him. Here too, it is the king’s edict that he shall not testify as to his handwriting for his father-in-law.

But what is a king’s edict? It is a relatively rare rabbinic expression that only shows up in two contexts in the Babylonian Talmud (though it does appear in a few early midrashim as well), here and Yoma 10a. There, we read:

Rav said: Persia is destined to fall into the hands of Rome. Rav Kahana and Rav Asi said to Rav: The builders will fall into the hands of the destroyers? He said to them: Yes, that is the king’s edict. Some say he said to them: They, too, are destroyers of synagogues.

Rav Kahana and Rav Asi ask a very reasonable question: How is it fair that the empire which allowed the rebuilding of the Temple would eventually fall to the empire that destroyed it? The Talmud preserves two possible answers. The second answer explains that the Persians were not perfect, but in fact deserve their fate because though they did not destroy the Temple, they did destroy synagogues in an unspecified episode.

The first answer, however, explains that it’s a “king’s edict.” In context, it’s clear that the king is God. According to this answer, Rav seems to be agreeing with his students that Persia’s eventual destruction at the hands of Rome appears unfair, but God has decreed it, perhaps for reasons beyond human understanding.

Seeing how the phrase is used in Yoma can help us understand what is happening on today’s daf. The Talmud asks how it is fair or reasonable that Isaac cannot testify, but others can testify about his testimony. And the Talmud’s response is that that’s what God decreed, regardless of what we think about it.

The rabbis usually present the world of law as something that can be understood by human minds. But once in a while they throw their hands up and say that things are the way that they are because that’s what God wants, without offering further opportunities to interrogate that claim. If we take seriously the rabbinic belief that God is king of the world, that metaphor means that, at least sometimes, kings don’t have to explain themselves.

Read all of Bava Batra 159 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 1, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

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Bava Batra 158

cloos — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 15:10:31 +0000

Today’s daf continues to examine cases where two people die in quick succession, and it’s unknown who died first. In such cases, what do we do with their property, whose division will vary depending on the order of their deaths?

The first several mishnahs examining this question contained a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. In cases of uncertainty about the order of death, Beit Shammai says the two possible inheriting parties divide the property between them, whereas Beit Hillel says that the property retains the presumptive status it held before the two people died. Whoever would inherit according to that status inherits it all. But the second mishnah on today’s daf contains a twist:

If the house collapsed on (a son) and upon his mother, these sages and those sages (Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel) concede that they divide the property between them.

In this scenario, the two possible inheriting parties are the mother’s inheritors from her paternal family (like her brother) and the son’s heirs (i.e. her grandsons). If the son died first, then he inherited nothing and all of the mother’s property goes to her heirs in her paternal family. If the mother died first, the son inherited her property before he died, and thus his heirs would inherit it all from him.

Unlike in our previous mishnahs, here it seems that Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai agree that the property should be evenly divided. What makes this case different? Rashbam explains that in previous scenarios, there was one party whose claim was based on inheritance and another whose claim was based on loan contracts, or the property in question was previously held by different parties (i.e. some by the husband and some under the wife’s auspices). In those cases, Beit Hillel believes there is only one party who should rightfully inherit. But here, where all the property is initially owned by the mother and both parties’ claims are based on inheritance, the only differentiating factor is the order of death, which we cannot determine. In such a case, everyone would say we simply split the property.

But then Rabbi Akiva chimes in:

Rabbi Akiva said: In this case I concede that the property retains (its previous ownership status). Ben Azzai said to Rabbi Akiva: We are already troubled by (those cases where Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel) are in disagreement. But do you come to bring upon us a disagreement where they agree?

It’s important to note, as Rashbam does, that Rabbi Akiva is not disagreeing with Beit Hillel, but with the previous reporting of Beit Hillel’s position. Rabbi Akiva himself wouldn’t have the authority to disagree with a position held by both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Still, he believes that even in this case, Beit Hillel would hold that the property retains its presumptive previous ownership and should not be split evenly. (The Gemara explains that the presumptive previous ownership status here refers to its belonging to the mother’s tribe, and therefore her inheritors from her paternal family would receive it all.)

In an entertaining commentary not found so commonly in the Talmud, Ben Azzai responds to Rabbi Akiva’s report of this tradition with exasperation. We’ve finally found a case where Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel agree, and you want to maintain that they disagree even here!?

While it’s satisfying when certain positions are held by all opinions, Rabbi Akiva is just sharing the tradition as he knows it. From what he has learned, Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai remain in dispute even here.

Read all of Bava Batra 158 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 30, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.

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