Bava Metzia 99b (צט:) — the Talmud in English

And the beraita continues:

And just as

land is acquired with money, a document, or possession, so rental is acquired with money, a document, or possession.

And we raise a difficulty concerning the latter clause of the beraita:

rental—

as it is written in the beraita, implying that it is speaking even of the rental of movable property—

what is its relevance—

what is its connection here—that it should be acquired through the modes of acquisition of land?

And we answer:

Rav Ḥisda said:

The beraita spoke only about

the rental of land.

The preceding sugya equated the law of ordinary property with the law of consecrated property: the acquisition effective for purchasing from an ordinary person removes consecrated property from its sacred status and renders the person liable for misuse of consecrated property.

Incidentally, the Gemara cites Shmuel’s statement that a distinction must be made between ordinary property and consecrated property with regard to liability for payment.

Shmuel said: With regard to one who steals a cluster of dates—

one who steals dates that are stuck together—

from another person, and there are fifty dates in it:

When sold together, they are sold for fifty less one—

when sold together, their price is forty-nine perutot. But when they are sold

one by one, they are sold for fifty—

they are sold individually for fifty perutot.

Therefore, if he stole

from an ordinary person,

and the stolen item is no longer in his possession,

he pays fifty

perutot

less one—

one less—the price at which all the dates are sold together. And likewise, if he damaged the ordinary person’s dates, he pays forty-nine perutot.

But if he stole

from consecrated property,

for which he became liable for misuse of consecrated property, his law is more stringent, and he

pays fifty

the value of each date individually,

and their fifth—

and their fifth, which he adds to the principal, in accordance with the Torah law that one who misuses consecrated property adds a fifth [Leviticus 5:16].

Unlike one who damages

consecrated property,

who does not pay the fifth,

but pays consecrated property only fifty.

As the Master said

in a beraita: With regard to teruma, the Torah states [Leviticus 22:14]: “And

if a person eats a sacred thing inadvertently

he shall add its fifth to it.” And they expound:

excluding one who damages

teruma, who does not pay a fifth. And the liability for misuse of consecrated property is derived from teruma through a gzera shava.

Rav Bibi bar Abaye raised an objection to this: With regard to ordinary property, why does he pay fifty less one?

Why does he pay the ordinary person forty-nine, the value of all the dates together?

Let him say to him: I would have sold them one by one!—

let him say to him, “I would have sold them separately,” and, accordingly, the value of the dates should be determined on that basis.

Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said

to resolve this difficulty: The payments are according to the value of all the dates together, for we have the rule that

we assess a se'a-field within that same field, we learned.

The Mishna in the chapter HaKones [Bava Kamma 55b] states: If an animal entered a field and ate the produce of a garden bed, how does it “pay for what it damaged”? We assess a se'a-field within that same field: how much it was worth and how much it is worth. That is, we do not assess the value of the garden bed separately. Rather, we are lenient with the one who caused the damage and assess the land—in the area of a se'a-field—in which the garden bed is located: for how much it would have been sold before the damage and for how much it is sold now. The difference between the prices is small, and that is what the one who caused the damage pays.

And the Gemara there derives this law from the verse [Exodus 22:4], “And it consumes in another’s field,” teaching that the damage is assessed not in relation to the damaged garden bed, but “against another field.”

And from this law one can also derive the law concerning one who damages or steals detached produce: its value is not assessed by valuing each fruit separately. Rather, the overall value of the produce is assessed, and one determines by how much the overall value has decreased—which is only by a relatively small amount.

But the Torah introduced this leniency only with regard to one who damages ordinary property, and we cannot derive from it the rules of payment for consecrated property, whose law is more stringent.

And the Gemara wonders:

Is this to say that Shmuel holds—

that is to say, Shmuel holds—

that the law of ordinary property is not equivalent to the law of the Most High—

but is more lenient than it?

But we learned

[Me'ila 19b]:

If

the treasurer took for himself

a stone or a beam from consecrated property,

because he thought it was his,

he has not committed misuse of consecrated property,

because this does not constitute removing it from the domain of consecrated property, as even before he took it, the consecrated property was in his domain.

If he gave it to another person

as a gift,

he committed misuse of consecrated property,

since he removed the stone from the domain of consecrated property.

And the other person,

who received the stone from him,

did not commit misuse of consecrated property,

since the stone had been desacralized by the treasurer.

If he built it

the treasurer

into his house, he has not yet committed misuse of consecrated property

with regard to it, because he did not remove it from consecrated property,

until he props up something beneath it,

at which point he benefits from consecrated property. Misuse of consecrated property can occur either through removing it or through benefiting from consecrated property

to the value of a peruta.

And Rabbi Abbahu was sitting before Rabbi Yoḥanan, and he was sitting and saying in the name of Shmuel: This is to say: One who resides in another’s courtyard without his knowledge must pay him rent.

The Gemara discusses in the chapter Keitzad HaRegel [Bava Kamma 20–21] the law concerning an unoccupied house that is not designated for rental or any other use, where a person came and lived in it without the owner’s knowledge, and after some time the owner demands rent. Is one who benefits from another’s property without the other having suffered a loss as a result obligated to pay him for the benefit or not?

And Shmuel proved from the Mishna concerning misuse of consecrated property that benefit creates liability for payment even when the property from which one benefited has not been diminished, as the consecrated stone was not diminished through its use.

And from this statement of Shmuel one can learn that Shmuel equated the law of ordinary property with the law of consecrated property. For if the law of consecrated property were more stringent than that of ordinary property, one could not bring proof from the liability stated with regard to consecrated property in order to impose liability also with regard to ordinary property. This contradicts what Shmuel said above, that consecrated property must be treated more stringently than ordinary property!

He retracted—

he withdrew—

Shmuel from that

proof that he had brought from the Mishna concerning misuse of consecrated property.

And

we raise a difficulty:

From where do you know that he retracted from that—

from where do we know that Shmuel withdrew from his statement there?

Perhaps he retracted from this—

perhaps he withdrew from his statement in this sugya concerning one who steals a cluster of dates!

And we answer:

No,

it does not appear so. Rather, it is more reasonable that he retracted

from that,

because Shmuel’s proof from the Mishna concerning misuse of consecrated property can be rejected,

as in Rava’s

argument: The distinction can be made between consecrated property and ordinary property with regard to the law of one who benefits, even if in every other context consecrated property is not more stringent than ordinary property.

For Rava said: Consecrated property without knowledge is equivalent to ordinary property with knowledge,

and one cannot bring proof from it concerning one who resides in another’s courtyard without his knowledge. For one who benefits from consecrated property is comparable to one who resides in another’s courtyard with his knowledge, since the Holy One, blessed be He, knows.

The preceding sugya dealt with one who steals or damages an object whose price can be assessed in two ways.

Incidentally, the Gemara cites the law concerning one who damages an object whose price changes on market day.

Rava said: These porters who broke a barrel

of wine belonging to a shopkeeper—

porters who negligently broke a barrel of wine belonging to a shopkeeper.

On market day

when there is then great demand for wine,

it is sold

the barrel

for five

, while on other days it is sold for four.

And they broke the barrel before market day.

The law is:

If they return payment to him on market day—

if they pay him on market day or beforehand—

they may return a barrel of wine to him—

they may return a barrel of wine to him or pay five.

And if they pay him

on other days

after market day,

they must return five

and not a barrel of wine that is now sold for four. For the shopkeeper could have sold the broken barrel for five. The porter cannot say to the shopkeeper, “Wait until the next market day.”

And we said this—

we stated this law, that after market day they must pay five—

only when he did not have wine to sell—

only when he lacked wine to sell on market day and claims, “I could have sold the barrel for five.”

But if he had wine to sell

on market day and did not sell it,

he should have sold it—

he could have sold it—and he cannot make the claim that he would have sold this barrel. Therefore, the porter may pay with a barrel of wine.

And

when he pays five,

he deducts from it—

the porter deducts from the payment

the fee for his effort,

since had he sold the barrel for five, he would have had to toil by selling it to many people in small quantities. The amount that a person would be willing to forgo in order to avoid this effort is assessed,

and the cost of the cooper’s spigot

which he would have had to pay the craftsman who makes a spigot for the barrel.