Bava Metzia 19 - March 18, 8 Adar 2

Today's daf is sponsored by Allie Alperovich in loving memory of her grandmother, Frima Iosilevich who passed away this week a month shy of her 98th birthday.

Rav Ashi was uncertain whether the law that a person can retrieve lost items by giving an identifying mark (siman) is a Torah law or not. As a result, when he reconciled the contradiction between the Tosefta that permitted one to return a lost get to the wife when the husband agreed and Mishna that did not, he explained that it could be returned if the husband gave a siman muvhak, a very clear one, and not more generic siman. Raba bar bar Hanna lost a get that he was supposed to deliver. It was found and he retrieved it by giving a siman (a basic one) and also by tviut aina, visual recognition, which is specifically permitted to Torah scholars, but he was unsure if the rabbis permitted it to be returned to him on account of the siman or the visual recognition. The Tosefta Bava Metzia 1:5, quoted previously, ruled that a get for divorce or emancipation document for a slave can be returned to the wife/slave if the husband/owner agrees. Both documents have financial ramifications, as the produce of the woman's property becomes her own in the event of divorce, and items the slave purchases belong to his owner while he is a slave but are his own if he is a free man. If so, why are we not concerned that perhaps they were not divorced/freed, and by returning the document to the woman or slave, we may be allowing them to collect property that is not rightfully theirs? If one gives a gift using the language "now and after death," the body of the item is given as a gift, but the produce is still owned by the original owner until his/her death. There is another contradiction between our Mishna and a braita as our Mishna states that wills can be returned if the owner admits he/she gave it and we are not concerned that the owner wrote it and then changed his/her mind and never gave it to the recipient, and a braita states that even if both agree that it was given, we do not return the document to either one. Rabbi Abba bar Mamal resolves the contradiction by differentiating between the cases - the Mishna refers to a promise of one on one's deathbed (which one can rescind)  and the braita refers to a gift of a healthy person (which can't be rescinded). The Gemara explains in detail the relevance of that distinction. Rav Zevid resolves the contradiction differently. He says that both the Mishna and braita refer to a gift on one's deathbed but the Mishna is in a case where the one who wants to return the deed is the person who wrote it and the braita is when it is his son (after the original owner's death).