Bava Metzia 20a — the Talmud in English

Infer from this from the fact that they did not take into consideration the loss of the purchasers improperly through returning the receipt to the husband by her admission:

from the fact that they were not concerned that the buyers might suffer an unjust loss when the receipt was returned to the husband through her admission:

Shmuel’s ruling is established [the law of Shmuel; it is true],

[that Samuel’s ruling is correct],

for Shmuel said: One who sells a debt document to another, and afterward forgives it,

the creditor of the debt to the debtor, this debt is

forgiven,

and even though he has already sold the debt to another,

and even the heir

of the creditor

can forgive it—

and therefore there is no loss here for the purchasers, even if they truly purchased the marriage document before the receipt was delivered to the husband, because delivering the receipt to her husband in Tishrei is like her forgiving her marriage document to her husband, and rightfully he causes them to lose.

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

even if you say that Shmuel’s law is not true and she cannot forgive it, nevertheless the beraita is satisfactory, because

here, with what are we dealing? With a marriage document

of hers

emerging from beneath her hand,

and from this it is proven that she did not sell her marriage document to another, for had she sold it, she would have delivered the marriage document to them.

And Rava said:

If it is because of the marriage document

that is in her possession, this is not sufficient, because

we are concerned about two marriage documents,

perhaps she had two marriage documents, and there is concern that perhaps she delivered one of them to the purchaser when she sold it to him.

And Abaye said:

The beraita cannot support Shmuel for two reasons:

One:

for it can be said—as Abaye initially said—that here, with what are we dealing? With a marriage document emerging from beneath her hand, and

we are not concerned about two marriage documents,

and necessarily she did not sell her marriage document.

And furthermore,

another explanation of the beraita: for this reason we are not concerned that perhaps she wrote it in Nisan but did not give it until Tishrei, causing the purchasers to lose, because even if this were so, her sale is not a sale, for since the date of the receipt is in fact written as Nisan, and

a receipt at its time

that is signed on it

collects, that is to say: the effectiveness of the receipt is from the time of its signing, if in the end the document was delivered into his possession, and if so, even if it were so that she did not deliver it to him until Tishrei, this delivery which she made to him in Tishrei,

is effective so that he acquires the receipt from the time of its signing, and the sale which she made in the interim is nothing.

And we explain:

Abaye

in this

follows his reasoning,

he

who said: “

Through its witnesses, by their signatures, one acquires it for him.”

Mishna:

This Mishna discusses one who finds documents concerning which there is no concern of payment and collusion, such as documents of the court, since there is also no concern with regard to them that after they were written the court reconsidered and decided not to give them; he must return them. Likewise, if he found documents within an object that has a identifying mark, or found them in a manner that can serve as an identifying mark, he must return them to the owner of the identifying mark.

a.

If he found valuation documents—

documents that the court writes for the creditor, in which they assessed the debtor’s property at such and such an amount and gave it to the creditor against his debt.

And maintenance documents—

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

Documents of chalitza—

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

And documents of mi’un—

a minor orphan whom her mother or brothers married off; as long as she is a minor, she may perform mi’un against her husband and say before three that she does not want him as a husband, and she leaves him without a bill of divorce, and the court gives her a document stating that she performed mi’un before them, as evidence that she may marry another.

And documents of arbitration—

in which it is written that the litigants, so-and-so and so-and-so, selected these judges to decide their case and obligated themselves to accept their ruling, as they taught in Sanhedrin [23a]: “This one selects one for himself, and that one selects one for himself, and the two judges select another one for themselves.”

And every act of the court—

and every document written by the court, such as a “document of seizure,” which they write for the creditor, stating that the debtor’s property was delivered to him for collection of his debt, when the debtor is not present . Or a “document of authorization,” which they write for the creditor when they did not find property belonging to the debtor, stating that he is permitted to search for the debtor’s property, and if he finds it, he may collect his debt.

One who finds all these:

must return them

to their owners, since there is no concern in returning these documents: perhaps the owner of the document reconsidered giving it, for the court writes the document only concerning something that has already been established; and there is also no concern of payment, for with these documents there is no payment .

b.

If he found

documents, and even debt documents or a bill of divorce and the like,

in a pouch—

in a small bag,

or in a case—

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

Or if he found

a bundle of documents—

documents bound one to another,

or a tied group of documents—

documents lying one upon another and tied together, with an identifying mark in the manner in which the documents are bound or in their number in the group.

he must return

the documents to whoever states the identifying marks of the pouch or case, or the identifying marks of the binding or the group of documents .

And how many

documents must there be together for it to be considered

a group of documents?

Three bound one to another,

that is, from three and more, the number itself is also an identifying mark; but with two, the number is not an identifying mark, since when the finder announces, “I found documents,” the minimum of a plural is two.

c.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: One debtor from three—

one who found three documents of one debtor, who borrowed from three different creditors, each document being from a different creditor,

must return

the documents

to the debtor,

for they certainly fell from him, since otherwise, how did documents from different creditors come together in one place ?!

And if he found

three debtors who borrowed from one—

three documents of three different debtors who borrowed from one creditor,

he must return them to the creditor,

for since they were found together, they certainly fell from him. However, if all three were in the handwriting of one scribe, there is concern that perhaps they fell from the scribe’s possession and were never lent at all; therefore he returns them only to one who gives an identifying mark concerning them.

d.

If he found a document among his documents, and he does not know what its nature is—

how it came into his possession: whether the debtor deposited it with him or the creditor, or perhaps part of it was paid and both of them delivered it to him so that he would be a third party between them,

it shall remain until Elijah comes

the prophet and clarify the uncertainty; and he shall not return the document either to the debtor or to the creditor until the matter is clarified .

e.

If there are receipts with them,

if a person found a receipt among his documents, meaning a receipt that one of his documents was paid,

he shall do what is written in the receipts,

he shall uphold what is written in the receipt, for the document has the presumption of having been paid. And although this receipt ought to have been in the debtor’s possession and not in the creditor’s possession, nevertheless we say that perhaps the debtor trusted the creditor and said that he would receive the receipt from him tomorrow, and forgot.

Gemara:

What

are

documents of arbitration?

What do they come to clarify?

Here they explained

as follows: these documents are

documents of claims,

documents in which they write and clarify the claims of the two parties litigating before the court.

Rabbi Yirmeya said:

these documents are documents made for the halakha explained in tractate Sanhedrin [23a]:

For the halakha is that a court of three judges, even laymen, may compel the defendant to come to judgment before them with the claimant. But if the court to which the claimant submitted his claim is not 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 claimant

selects for himself

one judge,

and this one

the defendant

selects for himself

one judge,

one ,

and the two judges select the third judge for themselves.

And after they selected the judges for themselves, 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; and this is a document of selection.

We learned in the Mishna:

“And every act of court,”

every document written by a court—

“it shall be returned.”

An incident:

That get that was found in the court of Rav Huna,

there was a get that was found in the court of Rav Huna,

in which it was written,

which was written in it:

“In Shavirei, the city beside the Rakhis River,”

in the city of Shavirei, which is situated beside the Rakhis River.

And in the get was written “henpek,” indicating that the court had examined the document, investigated it, and established the truth of the matter—that everything written in the document was true.

And there came the agent of the get, who had been sent by one of the residents of that city, and his name and his wife’s name matched the names written in the get. He said that he had lost it, and requested that they give it to him, so that he could fulfill his agency and divorce the woman with it.

Rav Huna said:

There is no proof that it belongs to So-and-so whose name appears in the document—from the known city of Shavirei, even if in that city there is only one person who has a name like the name appearing in the document,