Bava Metzia 20a (כ.) — the Talmud in English

This proves

from the fact that they were not concerned about causing the purchasers an unlawful loss by returning the voucher to the husband through her admission

: Shmuel’s ruling is established

[Shmuel’s ruling is true],

as Shmuel said: If one sells a promissory note to another, and then forgives the debt

to the debtor,

it is forgiven,

even though he had already sold the debt to another,

and even an heir

of the creditor

can forgive it—

and for this reason there is no loss here for the purchasers, even if they truly purchased the ketuba before the voucher was delivered to the husband, because her delivering the voucher to her husband in Tishrei is equivalent to her forgiving her ketuba to her husband , and he is rightfully causing them to lose it.

Abaye said: Even if you say that Shmuel’s ruling is not established,

even if you say that Shmuel’s ruling is not true and she cannot forgive the debt, the beraita is nevertheless understandable, because

here, with what are we dealing? With a case where the ketuba document

belonging to her

is in her possession,

which proves that she did not sell her ketuba to another, for had she sold it, she would have given them the ketuba.

And Rava said:

If it is because of the ketuba document

that is in her possession, that is insufficient, because

we are concerned about two ketubot,

perhaps she had two ketuba documents, and there is concern that she gave one to the purchaser when she sold it to him.

And Abaye said:

The beraita cannot support Shmuel for two reasons:

One:

For it may be said—as Abaye initially said—that here, with what are we dealing? With a case where the ketuba document is in her possession, and

we are not concerned about two ketubot,

so it is certain that she did not sell her ketuba.

And furthermore,

there is another explanation of the beraita: The reason we are not concerned that she wrote it in Nisan but did not give it until Tishrei, thereby causing the purchasers to lose, is that even if this were so, her sale would not be a valid sale. Since the date of the voucher is written as Nisan, and

a voucher that is effective from its date

as signed

collects,

meaning: the voucher takes effect from the time it was signed, if in the end the document was delivered to him; and if so, even if it were true that she did not deliver it to him until Tishrei, this delivery that she made to him in Tishrei would enable him to acquire the voucher from the time it was signed, and the sale that she made in the interim is entirely ineffective.

And we explain:

Abaye

in this matter

follows his own reasoning.

He is the one

who said: “

The witnesses acquire for him through their signatures.”

Mishna:

This Mishna discusses documents concerning which there is no concern of payment or collusion, such as documents issued by a court. Since there is likewise no concern that after they were written the court reconsidered and decided not to give them, one who finds them returns them. Similarly, if he finds documents within an object that has a identifying mark, or finds them in a manner that can itself serve as an identifying mark, he returns them to the person who can provide the identifying mark.

a.

One who finds documents of valuation—

documents that a court writes for a creditor, stating that they assessed the borrower’s property at a certain value and gave it to the creditor against the debt.

And documents of maintenance—

documents that a court writes for a woman, stating that her husband accepted upon himself to support her daughter from her first marriage.

Documents of halitza—

those that the court writes for a yevama who performed halitza before them.

And documents of mi’un—

a minor orphan whom her mother or brothers married off may, so long as she is a minor, perform mi’un against her husband and say before three people that she does not want him as a husband. She thereby leaves him without a get, and the court gives her a document stating that she performed mi’un before them, as evidence that she may marry someone else.

And documents of clarification—

that state that the litigants, so-and-so and so-and-so, selected these judges to decide their case and undertook to accept their ruling, as was taught in Sanhedrin [23a]: “This one selects one judge, and that one selects one judge, and the two judges select an additional one for themselves.”

And every record of court proceedings—

every document written by a court, such as a “document of final adjudication,” which is written for a creditor when the borrower’s property was delivered to him for collection of his debt while the borrower is not present. Or a “document of authorization to collect,” which is written for a creditor when no property was found in the borrower’s possession, authorizing him to search for the borrower’s property and, if he finds it, collect his debt from it.

One who finds all these

must return them

to their owners, because there is no concern involved in returning these documents: there is no concern that the owner of the document reconsidered giving it, since the court wrote the document only concerning something that had already been established, and there is likewise no concern of payment, since these documents do not serve for payment.

b.

One who finds

documents, including promissory notes or a get and the like,

in a pouch—

in a bag,

or in a deluska—

in a case, and there are identifying marks on these containers.

Or he found

a bundle of documents—

documents tied together,

or a cluster of documents—

documents placed one on top of another and tied together, with an identifying mark in the manner in which the documents were tied or in their number in the cluster.

He must return them

to whoever states the identifying marks of the pouch or case, or the identifying marks of the bundle or cluster of documents.

And how many

documents must be together for it to be considered

a cluster of documents?

Three tied together,

meaning, three or more; even the number is then an identifying mark. But with two, the number is not an identifying mark, since when the finder announces, “I found documents,” the minimum plural number is two.

c.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: If one borrower borrowed from three—

one who found three documents belonging to one borrower, who borrowed from three different creditors, each document being from a different creditor,

he must return

the documents

to the borrower,

for they certainly fell from him; otherwise, how did documents from different creditors happen to come together in one place?

And if he found

three borrowers who borrowed from one creditor—

three documents belonging to three different borrowers who borrowed from one creditor,

he must return them to the creditor,

because since they were found together, they certainly fell from him. However, if all three were written in the handwriting of a single scribe, there is concern that they fell from the scribe and that the loans never took place; therefore, he must return them only to whoever provides an identifying mark concerning them.

d.

If one finds a document among his documents, but does not know its nature—

how it came into his possession: whether the borrower deposited it with him, or the creditor, or perhaps part of it was paid and both of them gave it to him to hold as a third party,

it shall remain in place until Elijah comes

the prophet and clarifies the uncertainty; he must not return the document either to the borrower or to the creditor until the matter is clarified.

e.

If there are vouchers with them,

if a person finds a voucher among his documents—that is, a voucher stating that one of his documents has been paid,

he shall act in accordance with what is written in the vouchers,

he shall uphold what is written in the voucher, since the document has the presumptive status of having been paid. Although this voucher should properly have been in the borrower’s possession rather than in the creditor’s, nevertheless we say that perhaps the borrower trusted the creditor and said that he would receive the voucher from him the next day, but forgot.

Gemara:

What

are

documents of clarification?

What do they come to clarify?

Here they explained

as follows: These documents are

documents of claims,

documents in which the claims of the two parties litigating before the court are written and clarified.

Rabbi Yirmeya said:

These are documents drawn up for the halakha discussed in tractate Sanhedrin [23a]:

The halakha is that a court of three judges, even laymen, may compel the defendant to come and litigate before them together with the plaintiff. However, if the court to which the plaintiff brought his claim is not permanently established in the city, or if there are several courts in the city, or because the judges are not experts, the defendant may say that he does not wish to litigate before these judges, but rather before others.

And how do the litigants select judges?

This one

the plaintiff

chooses for himself

one judge,

and this one

the defendant

chooses for himself

one judge

one ,

and the two judges choose the third judge for themselves.

After they have selected the judges, they write in the document: “This one selected so-and-so as a judge for himself, and this one selected so-and-so as a judge for himself,” so that they cannot retract their agreement; and this is a document of arbitration.

We learned in the Mishna:

“And every court document,”

every document written by a court—

“must be returned.”

An incident:

A certain get was found in the court of Rav Huna,

a get that had been found in Rav Huna’s court,

in which it was written,

as follows:

“In Shuviri, the city beside the Rekis River,”

in the city of Shuviri, located beside the Rekis River.

The get contained the endorsement “authenticated,” meaning that the court had examined the document, investigated it, and established that everything written in it was true.

Then the messenger of the get, who had been sent by one of the residents of that city, came. His name and the name of his wife matched the names written in the get, and he said that he had lost it. He requested that they give it to him so that he could fulfill his mission and divorce the woman with it.

Rav Huna said:

There is no proof that it belonged to the particular man whose name appears in the document, from the known city of Shuviri—even if in that city there was only one person whose name matched the name appearing in the document,