Bava Metzia page 14
 A field was stolen. The thief sold it and the buyer worked on it. Then the field goes back to the owner with the improvements. Rav said the buyer gets the amount of the improvements from the thief along with the money he paid for it. Shmuel said he does not get the improvements.
Tosphot says this is the same principle being applies as is applied on page 101 where someone goes into  a field and plants trees. There the owner pays either the improvement or the expense whichever is less.

I wanted today to say what is bothering Tosphot. I did not put that in my essay yesterday since I thought it was enough that at least I said what Tosphot was thinking. But today I wanted to say why he is thinking what he is thinking. He is bothered by several questions.  Lets say the case is the improvement is less. Then why does the owner not give the buyer the amount of the improvement directly to Rav? And it seems strange that on page 101 a  someone who directly walks into someone else field gets paid the amount he improved the field while the buyer on pg 14  gets nothing to Samuel. This I think is perhaps the main thing that is bothering Tosphot. Thus Tosphot comes up with an elegant solution.--He says it is the same principle at work in both places. I.e. he is thinking that the buyer from the thief also gets paid for the work he did--but that he gets the amount directly from the owner.

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 A field was stolen. The thief sold it and the buyer worked on it. Then the field goes back to the owner with the שבח. The law is this.  רב said the buyer gets the amount of the שבח from the thief along with the money he paid for it. שמואל said he does not get the שבח.
On page 14 תוספות says this is the same principle being applies as is applied on page ק''א where someone goes into  a field and plants trees. There the owner pays either the improvement or the expense whichever is less.

I wanted today to say what is bothering תוספות.  He is bothered by several questions.  Let us say the case is the שבח is less. Then why does the owner not give the buyer the amount of the שבח directly in the opinion of רב? And it seems strange that on page ק''א a  someone who directly walks into someone else field gets paid the amount he improved the field while the buyer on page י''ד  gets nothing to שמואל. This I think is perhaps the main thing that is bothering תוספות. Thus תוספות comes up with an elegant solution. He says it is the same principle at work in both places. I.e. he is thinking that the buyer from the thief also gets paid for the work he did, but that he gets the amount directly from the owner.

פה אני מסביר למה תוספות אומר מה שהוא אומר. שדה נגנב. הגנב מכר אותו והקונה עבד עליו. אז השדה חוזר לבעלים עם השבח. החוק הוא זה. רב אמר הקונה מקבל את סכום השבח מהגנב יחד עם הכסף שהוא שילם על זה. שמואל אמר שהוא אינו מקבל את השבח. בעמוד י''ד תוספות אומר שזה אותו העיקרון שחל כמוחל על דף ק''א שבו מישהו נכנס לשדה של מי שהוא ונטע עצי שדה וצמחים. שם הבעלים משלמים או השבח או ההוצאה לפי הנמוך מביניהם. אני רוצה לומר היום מה מטריד את התוספות. תן לי לומר המקרה הוא השבח הוא פחות. אז מדוע הבעלים לא נותנים לקונה את סכום השבח ישירות בדעתו של רב? עוד שאלה: זה נראה מוזר שעל דף ק''א מישהו שהולך ישירות לתוך שדה מישהו  שהוא מקבל תשלום הסכום שהוא שיפר את השדה בעוד הקונה על י''ד הדף אינו מקבל שום דבר לשמואל. זה אולי הדבר העיקרי שמטריד את תוספות. כך תוספות מגיע עם פתרון אלגנטי. הוא אומר שזה אותו העיקרון בשני המקומות. כלומר הוא חושב שהקונה מהגנב גם מקבל תשלום עבור העבודה שהוא עשה, אלא שהוא מקבל את הסכום ישירות מהבעלים.

Music for the glory of the God of Israel.

q41 mp3   q41 midi   w41 nwc format

I should mention that Mozart sometimes takes a motif into 5 or three measures instead of what you would usually expect. I am not sure why he does this but I feel that if he thinks it is OK to do so --well that is good enough for me also.  Go and check and you will see that Mozart does this more often than people are aware of.

Bava Metzia 14b 101a

I wanted to preface my remarks with thanks to God for granting me even a little bit of learning Torah. I wish I could do it like it is supposed to be done but I don't have the merit for that. My sins block my way to Torah. But when God grants me to see the light from the deep dark places I have fallen to I am enormously grateful.

The case here is you have a thief. He took a field and he sold it. The field goes back to it original owner. The thief has to give back the money he took. But what happens if the buyer spend money and time planting trees? Or maybe he did other kinds of improvement? Now the field goes back to the original owner with the improvement who pays the buyer? Rav said logically enough the thief pays for the improvement. That makes abundant sense. So here is my essay on this



You have a thief and the owner and the buyer of a field. Rav said מעות יש לו שבח יש לו.(lit he gets money and improvement.) I.e. The buyer gets the price of the field and  שבח (improvement) from the thief. On page 101 you have a person that went into the field of his friend without permission and planted trees. The owner there  has to pay either the improvement or the expense which ever was less (ידי על התחתונה). Tosphot says this is the same case and the same law.

[note: the Rambam and Rashi have a different approach. I am only trying to deal with Tosphot here.]

It occurred to me what this Tosphot means. The question you have to think about to make this all clear is who pays whom?

To Rav the owner pays the thief for the improvement, and then the thief pays the buyer. But to Shmuel the thief does not pay the buyer for the improvement. But to Samuel the buyer goes to the owner and gets back the same amount that was fixed on page 101.



בבא מציעא יד: קא.
אני רוצה לפתוח את דבריי בתודה לאלוהים על שהעניק לי אפילו קצת לימוד תורה. הלוואי שהייתי יכול לעשות את זה כמו שהוא אמור לעשות, אבל אין לי את הזכות לזה. החטאים שלי חוסמים את הדרך לתורה. אבל כאשר אלוהים מעניק לי לראות את האור מהמקומות העמוקים והאפלים שנפלתי אני מאוד אסירת תודה.

יש לך גנב ובעל הבית ולוקח שדה. בעמוד יד: רב אמר קרן יש לו שבח יש לו. לוקח מקבל שבח מהגנב. בעמוד קא. יש לך אדם שנכנס לשדה של חברו ללא רשות ונטע עצים. הבעלים שם יש להם לשלם וידי הנוטע על התחתונה. בעמוד יד: תוספות אומר שזה אותו המקרה ואותו החוק.  לרב הבעלים משלמים לגנב השבח (או היציאה איזה שהוא פחות), ולאחר מכן הגנב משלם הקונה את כל השבח. (אם הבעלים נתנו לו רק היציאה בגלל שזה פחות אז הגנב צריך לשלם את היתר להגיע לסכום של כל השבח). אבל לשמואל הגנב אינו משלם הקונה לשיפור. אבל לשמואל הקונה הולך לבעלים ומקבל בחזרה את אותה כמות שהיה קבועה בעמוד קא., או השבח או היציאה

Ideas in Talmud

\Idea in Bava Metzia version C

The reason these are here again is I had to do editing and God granted to me an answer I had to a question on Tosphot on Bava Metzia page 14

See the "letter of ethics"  אגרת המוסר of Reb Israel Salanter



There is what one could call a physical evil inclination. That is what you might say is the desires and bad character traits that are just a part of being human. This evil inclination has aspects of hatred, anger, desires, greed, etc. There is also a spiritual evil inclination that is cunning. It excels in getting a person to fall into traps, it is what we usually call the Satan. It hates good because it is good. And it affects mainly people that have been freed from the first level of evil inclination. So you usually find the greatest evil in people that you would normally consider to be saints. They in fact are saints since they have been freed from hatred and anger and greed etc, but that instead of making them  better, it just exposes them to the more subtle level of evil inclination the actual Satan.

What irony it is that when a person wants to find a true saint for guidance, that he finds instead a person who has in fact killed his lower evil inclination, but is subject to the higher evil inclination.
and you can  SEE THIS ALL THE TIME. You have perfectly normal well adjusted kids that find some so called tzadik and then they become disaster zones.

And this tzadik because he has killed his passions and separated himself from the pleasures of this world has in fact spiritual powers. But since he is subject to the Satan the powers are used in the wrong ways.

In a practical sense this is all too simple. Don't go to tzadikim.


Rather learn and keep Torah just like it says.

As far as Kabalah is concerned it is usually very damaging. Not that it is bad. But people in general just are not properly prepared. Mainly the problem is because of pseudo Kabalah. Some try to make a buck off of it by presenting their own messed up versions. So if you can manage to get through the Talmud a few times then it is time to plow into the writings of Isaac Luria.

 It seems many people have some kind of problems that they find unsolvable.

Sometimes people have been labeled schizo or some pseudo scientific label. 

My advice is 

First of all stop trying to be normal, The more you try, the worse things are. Try to just be yourself. Don't try to fit into any mold that others have labeled normal. Maybe you are normal and they are crazy? In fact I am sure all the people that label others with psychological labels, certainly are insane. That is 100% certain. But still even after all that you do have problems.But that is just being human. You just have to do your best every day to be good and learn Musar [Classical and medieval Ethics] and Torah. That means  a very specific set of classical ethics. חובות לבבות אורחות צדיקים מסילת ישרים נפש החיים המספיק לעובד השם שערי תשובה ספר הישר של רבינו תם

For a more general audience I would recommend Shimshon Refael Hirsh's Horev.

I should mention that the Musar movement itself produced some very good books. The direct disciples of Israel Salanter wrote some excellent stuff, like the מדגרת האדם. That is a  very powerful character changing book that really gets the idea about trust in God into you.

Recently Musar has seemed to gone off in some tangents. Some seem to be "frumaks" that is people that make being frum [religious] into a business. But that is because every good thing can be used for bad also.
Some people find in Musar reason to cease working and depend on charity or to be against Israel or weird kinds of pantheism. This is lamentable. Musar is simply a tool for character improvement and fear of God. It is not meant to advance any political agenda.

Isaac Luria's major book the Eitz Chaim was called a great Musar book 


And this in fact is true. But it is also a dangerous tool. What I think is to learn Isaac Luria's book in the context of regular Torah study and not to "make a thing" out of it. People that "make a thing" of kabalah tend to ריבוי אור--too much bright light that breaks the vessels. It is best to work on the Ari after finishing Shas a few times.


The best approach to Musar and Kabalah is to do both in the context of a straight Lithuanian yeshiva in which most of the day the Gemara is learned in depth. That context provides a protective shield against the dark side which tries to take hold of a person when it sees him involved in such things.