Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia page 100.

The seller has sold a slave. But he has two slaves. The seller and buyer agree to cancel the deal. but does the seller give back 20 or 25? Which slave was sold? The big one or the small one? The משנה says the seller takes an oath that he sold the small one and gives back just 20. {The משנה we know is סומכוס for other reasons who holds we divide money in doubt. The חכמים say we leave money in the possession of he who has it until there is proof otherwise.} So it looks like we are leaving the money that is in doubt with the seller like the sages said--not like סומכוס.
But this is not my problem in this above note. I am puzzling over six words in תוספות: "But it is not דררא דממונא." What does תוספות want here? In another paragraph I explained this to mean תוספות want to leave the money with the seller without an oath. And that would seem to be like the רשב''ם that possession and certainty determine that the seller gets the whole five dollars with no oath. So תוספות seems to be saying that since this is not דררא דממונא there should be no oath. But that would be going against the idea that דררא דממונא has nothing to do with the oath but rather where the money goes to.
[מהרש''א דף ב  בבא מציעא.]

I  have been puzzling on and off about this תוספות for years. תוספות when he starts the  אי תימא is talking about a different part of the משנה than the beginning of תוספות. This one simple fact clears up the entire תוספות.
The Mishna first says when both the seller and the buyer are sure then the seller takes an oath that he sold the smaller slave. תוספות is bothered by this and says it is a case where no document has been written about the sale. But then תוספות asks his question that has been bothering me on and off for about 7 years. "But how can they divide? It is not דררא דממונא?"
Now I understand. תוספות is asking about the end of the משנה. There the case is the seller and buyer are both in doubt. And there the law is they divide. And תוספות asks on this how can they divide when it is not a case of דררא דממונא. and they answer it is a case of דררא דממונא because the sale occurred before witnesses that heard them decide the large slave for twenty five dollars and the small one for twenty and they did not see how much money changed hands. What תוספות is saying is that that means there is a doubt to the court of law even without their pleas and that make it דררא דממונא. Now תוספות is crystal clear. Yet we do need to ask how this fits in with the previous part of the משנה where there is an oath.
If סומכוס agrees there is an oath when the parties are sure then there is no problem. But there is an opinion he holds money is doubt is divided even when the pleas are certain. And the תלמוד answers on this it is a case where the oath is from the תורה. I have answered before that the oath here is from the תורה because it is a case of admission in part. The seller admits he owes twenty dollars. He just does not admit the remaining five dollars. But if this is the case then why is there no oath at the end of the משנה? Answer: because when the sellers says he does not know that is not considered admitting in part.

Now to make this תוספות make sense I had to go to מסכת בבא בארא to discover there an opinion that תוספות is depending on here. That is that סומכוס only says his law when there is דררא דממונא.
Because the תוספות is printed with a reference to בבא מציעא דף ב where it says something completely different at made this תוספות very confusing.


Appendix: In the Torah there are laws about slaves. The Bible is  not politically correct.
If America had known about this a long time ago the USA would have been saved from  lot of trouble. And if the USA would accept that slaves still remain slaves even after a government official declares them to be freed the USA could still be saved from   from trouble.
It is a general rule in life not to try to outsmart the Torah.

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The Torah path

I love Torah.  When I got to yeshiva I felt like I was in Gan Eden.

I believe that the light of the Torah can change everything in one's life to good.

 I think the best way to approach Torah is to take the straightforward Lithuanian yeshiva approach 
[] Stay away from doctors. [They make people sick.]
[] Stay away from psychologists  and other charlatans and frauds. [They make people sick mentally.] 

[] Talk with God in nature. Thank him for the good in your life, and ask for the things you need. (If a forest is not available, then talk to God an hour per day in any situation. But not from a prayer book. It has to be your own words.)
[] Finish the Written Law in Hebrew.
[] Learn and finish the Oral Law. [i.e. the two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifi and the Midrash Raba.] 
[] Learn Musar. (That is, classical books of morality from the Middle Ages, plus the books of the disciples of Israel Salanter and the Gra.) If nothing else learn these two  books: (1) מדרגת האדם of the Altar of Narvardok about trust in God. (2) אור ישראל by Isaac Blasser a disciple of Israel Salanter about Musar. 
[] Serve in the IDF (Israel Defense Force). If you are not in Israel, then go there and serve in the IDF.
[]  There is an important piece of advice in the Guide ( Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam )--to learn Physics [String Theory] and Metaphysics [i.e. a book by Aristotle].

This is in my opinion the Torah path. I think that if one does this that the yoke of having to make money will be lifted from ones shoulders. Like it says in Pirkei Avot "One who accepts on himself the yoke of Torah from heaven they remove the yoke of making money from him."

Appendix

1) I do think the Litvaks go a little drop too much in the religious direction. But my goal in this essay is to indicate what I think is the best approach. Not to deal with how far any particular groups falls from this straightforward approach. You can find fault in any of the groups that hold most strongly with anything I wrote above. I can't deal with that issue right now. Rather I am just saying what approach people should aim for.
2) To be able to learn string theory, you need a little bit of math. Mainly Algebra and Geometry.
And it takes time. In fact, I admit I have not spent as much time on this as I should have. But let us not make this about me. Mainly you need to get a book on Relativity and one on Field Theory. Also Allen Hachter's book Algebraic Topology. Say the words out-loud and fast and go on.
Also it is good to have an slow session in Math to take one particular subject and keep at it until you get it. 

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A person involved in a mitzvah does not have to stop to do another one. Suka 25

"A groom and his friends do not have to sit in the Suka."
Braita:  "A groom and his friends do not have to pray or put on Tefilin, but have to say the Shema."
Rashi says that Braita is going like the opinion: When is doing one mitzvah, he is obligated to do another one."
 From what I can tell by looking at the back of the Gemara in the Rif at the Raavad, Ramban and Meor there is that this is an argument of tenaim [sages of the Mishna] and that we poskin [decide ] that one does not have to stop. So a groom would not even have to say Shema.
This looks to me how the Gra was thing about learning Torah. He says one can stop to do a mizvah. Not must.
The reason for the confusion is the Rif brings both braitas; and after him the Shulchan Aruch also.
So what is happening is the is an essential contradiction that is being presented as a consistent opinion.

So why the Rif does this no one knows. But they all come out saying that even if we don't know what the Rif was thinking, still we do know the actual pesak halacha.[decided law] העוסק במצווה פטור מן המצווה

This has far reaching ramifications, as you can imagine.

 I have not learned this "sugia" with a learning partner, so I must say my conclusions are only tentative.
Also I should mention that not everything can be called a mitzvah in this context.  People like to expand the definition of mitzvah beyond what the Torah says is a mitzvah. And  that kind of thinking would not work here.

Bava Metzia page 14. You have  a case where a field was stolen and now goes back to the original owner. Rashi asks why the owner does not pay for the improvement? After all he is getting an improved field. Rashi says it is a case where  the thief let it go fallow and it was improved in the hands of the buyer.
What you see here is even though this Rashi disagrees with Tosphot and the Rambam, still the foundation principle is the buyer who improved it gets back the improvement. Just like how Rav Shach explains things on page 15 where the case is the buyer ate fruit, and has to pay back. Rav Shach [Elazar Menachem Shach of the Ponovitch Yeshiva in Bnei Brak.]says that is fruit he did not work on. See the Avi Ezri.



 מציעא בבא 14. יש לך מצב שבו שדה נגנב ונקנה ועכשיו חוזר לבעלים המקורים. רש"י שואל מדוע בעל השדה אינו משלם לשיפור? אחרי כל מה שהוא מקבל שדה שהשתפר. רש"י אומר שזה מקרה שבו הגנב נתן לשדה ללכת בור  והיה שיפור בידיו של הקונה
מה שרואים מפה הוא שאף על פי שרש''י חולק על תוספות והרמב''ם בדין הזה עם כל זה היסוד הוא שמה שהלוקח  שיפר  הוא מקבל. וזה כמו שרב שך פירש הסוגיא בדף ט''ו איפה שיש דיון דומה
שם הלוקח אכל פירות וצריך לשלם על מה שאכל. רב שך מסביר שזה מצה שלא עבד על השבח כגון שהפירות הם פירי אילן

What is bothering me and has bothered me for a long time is that we seem to be letting the thief off the hook because of what the owner of the field pays. This is a question in my mind to the Tosphot Rambam Alliance, and all the more so to Rashi.
What I mean here is this. From the Rambam we have that the owner pays the lesser amount of one of two things, the improvement or the expense. And in the case the expense is less then that is all he pays and the thief pays the rest of the difference. But my question is what would happen if the owner would pay nothing? Then the thief would have to pay the entire improvement--not just the difference between the expense and the improvement.


All the more so to Rashi who puts the major burden of paying to the buyer on the back of the owner. Rashi says if the owner got back his field in a better state than when it was stolen he would have to pay for all the improvement. Then I ask what does the thief pay? Nothing except to give back the money to the buyer?

Music written for the glory of God

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This was written in Uman.



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