There is an argument between Rav Joseph HaLevi [a rishon] and the Ran [on the Rif]. Rav  Joseph says a מיגו does not apply to an oath. It does not patur one from an oath, but it can patur one from an obligation of money.The Ran says it does patur also from an oath. [A מיגו is when we say since he could have said a stronger plea and be believed we believe him when he says a weaker plea]


In Shavuot 46a and Bava Metzia 112 a Braita says we have a case of קציצה. That is the artisan says he was told he would receive two  for his work and the owner of the object says the artisan was told only one. The Braita says we believe the owner with an oath. Another braita says we believe the owner without an oath. Another braita says when the artisan was give a garment to fix then we believe the artisan with an oath. Rav Nachman says the last braita is Rabbi Yehuda of the Mishna. Why did he not say simply that in the last case there is no מיגו? Because in the first case also there is no migo. The gemara at the top of the page says the braita of Raba bar Shmuel is when there are עדים that there was an agreement but they did not hear for how much it was.


Why can't we answer the last braita the owner is not believed because he has no מיגו? He wants his garment. The first two cases were when the work the artisan was doing was not portable. So the object is in the רשות domain of the owner. But the gemara says in any case there is no migo because it has to be like the case of the שכיר where there were witnesses that there was an agreement.

But that was the way that Rav Nachman bar Isaac explained the braita of Raba bar Shmuel. Rava apparently does not agree. Rav Nachman bar Isaac was trying to make the braita go in accord with Rav and Shmuel. Rava disagreed with Rav and Shmuel and so he would leave the braita the way it sounds that there were no witnesses. And still the שכיר נשבע ונוטל and the בעל החפץ pays just one sela. But if so then to rava he has a migo. and so the difference between the two braitot might be in the first ones when the baal bait is believed it is because he has a migo  and in the last case where the talit is in the hands if the artisan he is not believed because he has no migo. This is a proof for Rav Joseph Halevi at least if we are going like Rava.




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Here is the same idea but with a bit more Hebrew.


There is an argument between רב יוסף הלוי and the ר''ן. We have רב יוסף הלוי says a מיגו does not apply to an שבועה. It does not פוטר one from an שבועה, but it can פוטר one from an חיוב ממון. The ר''ן says it does פוטר also from an שבועה. A מיגו is when we say since he could have said a stronger plea and be believed we believe him when he says a weaker plea


In שבועות מ''ו ע''א and בבא מציעא קי''ב a ברייתא  של רבה בר שמואל says we have a case of קציצה. That is the אומן says he was told he would receive שתיים  for his work and the בעל החפץ says he told the  אומן  only one. The ברייתא says we believe the בעל החפץ with an שבועה. Another ברייתא says we believe the בעל החפץ without an שבועה. Another ברייתא says when the אומן was given a garment to fix then we believe the אומן with an שבועה. We have that רב נחמן בר יצחק says the last ברייתא is רבי יהודה of the משנה שמודה במקצת הטענה נשבע. Why did he not say simply that in the last case there is no מיגו? Because in the first case also there is no מיגו. The גמרא at the top of the page says the ברייתא of רבה בר שמואל is when there are עדים that there was an agreement but they did not hear for how much it was.


Why can't we answer the last ברייתא the owner is not believed because he has no מיגו? He wants his garment. The first two cases were when the חפץ the אומן was doing was not ניידת. So the object is in the רשות domain of the בעל החפץ. But the גמרא says in any case there is no מיגו because it has to be like the case of the שכיר where there were witnesses that there was an הסכמה.

But that was the way that רב נחמן בר יצחק explained the ברייתא of רבה בר שמואל. We have that רבא apparently does not agree. רב נחמן בר יצחק was trying to make the ברייתא go in accord with רב and שמואל. However רבא disagreed with רב and שמואל and so he would leave the ברייתא the way it sounds that there were no עדים. And still the שכיר נשבע ונוטל and the בעל החפץ pays just one סלה. But if so then to רבא he has a מיגו. And so the difference between the two ברייתות might be in the first ones when the בעל החפץ is believed it is because he has a מיגו  and in the last case where the טלית is in the hands if the אומן he is not believed because he has no מיגו. This is a proof for רב יוסף הלוי at least if we are going like רבא.



In any case, perhaps רבא and רב נחמן בר יצחק are  arguing about when we say a מיגו.  Could that be the יסוד of their מחלוקת?




יש ויכוח בין רב יוסף הלוי והר''ן.  רב יוסף לוי אמר מיגו אינו פוטר מן שבועה. זה אומר לא פוטר אחד משבועה, אבל זה יכול לפטור אחד מחיוב ממון. הר''ן אמר שהיא עושי לפטור גם משבועה. מיגו הוא כאשר אנו אומרים שכן הוא היה יכול  לומר טיעון חזק ולהאמין ולכן אנחנו מאמינים לו כשהוא אומר טיעון חלש. בשבועות  מ''ו ע''א ובבא מציעא קי''ב בברייתא של רבה בר שמואל יש לנו מקרה של קציצה. זה שהאומן אומר שנאמר לו שהוא יקבל שניים על עבודתו ובעל החפץ אומר שהוא אמר לאומן אחד בלבד. הברייתא אומרת שאנחנו מאמינים בעל החפץ  עם שבועה. עוד ברייתא אומרת שאנחנו מאמינים בעל החפץ ללא שבועה. עוד ברייתא אומרת כאשר האומן קיבל בגד לתקן אז אנחנו מאמינים אומן עם שבועה.  רב נחמן בר יצחק אמר ברייתא האחרונה היא רבי יהודה של המשנה שמודה במקצת הטענה נשבעה. למה הוא לא אמר בפשטות כי במקרה האחרון אין מיגו? כי במקרה הראשון גם אין מיגו. הגמרא בראש הדף, אמרה שהברייתא של רבה בר שמואל היא כאשר יש עדים שהיה הסכם אבל הם לא שמעו על כמה זה היה. למה אנחנו לא יכולים לענות שבברייתא האחרונה לא מאמינים לבעל החפץ כי אין לו מיגו? הוא רוצה את בגדו. שני המקרים הראשונים היו כאשר החפפ שהאומן עבד עליו לא היה נייד. אז החפץ ברשותו של בעל החפץ. אבל הגמרא אומרת בכל מקרה אין מיגו כי זה צריך להיות כמו במקרה של השכיר שבו היו עדים שהיה הסכמה. אבל זה היה האופן שבו רב נחמן בר יצחק הסביר את הברייתא של רבה בר שמואל. לי נראה שרבא לא מסכים. רב נחמן בר יצחק היה מנסה לעשות שהברייתא תהיה בקנה אחד עם רב ושמואל. עם זאת רבא לא הסכים עם רב ושמואל, ואז הוא יעזוב את  הברייתא להיות כפשוטו, שלא היו עדים. ועדיין השכיר נשבע ונוטל ובמצב של קציצה עם אומן בעל החפץ משלם רק אחד. אבל אם כן אז לרבא יש לבעל החפץ מיגו. וכך ההבדל בין שתי הברייתות עשוי להיות שבראשונה כאשר בעל חפץ הוא נאמן שזה בגלל שיש לו מיגו ובמקרה האחרון שבו הטלית היא בידיים של האומן בעל החפץ לא נאמן כי אין לו מיגו. זוהי הוכחה לרב יוסף לוי לפחות אם אנחנו הולכים כמו רבא.  בכל מקרה, על פני השטח נראה שרבא ורב נחמן בר יצחק  מתווכחים על שאלת מתי אומרים מיגו. זה יכול להיות היסוד המחלוקת.

Ideas in Bava Metzia     Title page for Ideas in Bava Metzia

the religious teachers

Getting married was an important aspect of yeshiva. It was not really spoken about but it was a powerful undercurrent.
The idea was to be a good yeshiva bachur (student) and you will get a good shiduch. This did not exactly work in my case. After all shiduchim and marriage are not accessible to human intervention. Once you are dealing with the realm of holiness and bringing good children into the world, human reason does not really apply. Still the basic structure was in place to have stable and good families.

Some yeshivas were known to be 90% about shiduchim  and 10% about learning Torah like Lakewood. NY yeshivas were the opposite. They were almost totally about Torah and very little about shiduchim. Shar Yashuv was about half and half. [Shar Yashuv had a sister institution run by the wife of Reb Freifeld which provided the fuel for this arrangement.]

But this really did not apply to divorced people. After a divorce one's social status dropped like lead.

Marriage no longer has the meaning that it used to have. Even in the yeshiva world. You might have expected the world of yeshivas to be like a Noah;s Ark against the tidal waves of feminism and other perversions.

The best I can suggest is: Trust in God-learn Torah. Though yeshivas are no longer bastions of faith and Torah, still one one own one can try to do his best.

1) The way I learned about trust in God with out any efforts on my part was by a book מדרגת האדם that was in the Musar section of the Mir Yeshiva in NY. Before that I had not heard of such a concept and I certainly did not have that kind of trust myself. When I joined the "Yeshiva World" I was simply saying whatever they do that is what I will do. They can't all be starving.

2)  I did not know then that the religious teachers are bad. Now I know.   And even then if I had known that the religious teachers are evil it still would not have stopped me. I still would say just like I do now that they are frauds and do not keep the holy Torah. The way I was then was that nothing was going to stop me from the Torah. Nothing.

3) Now I realize trust in God is an essential part of this whole learning Torah project. What I therefore suggest is to create what you could call Navardok yeshivas. That is places that have all the basic characteristics of a regular Litvak [Lithuanian] yeshiva but add an emphasis on trust [Bitachon].

4) Some places are devoted to money. They talk about trust but really mean to to get the money of secular rich Jews. Others claim that the Torah is a legitimate business. They think learning Torah for pay is kosher. These places are evil. They prey off the naivety of simple Jews.

5) The מדרגת האדם the book that I mentioned above is about trust has some section that are against learning natural sciences. He puts all secular subjects into one big category. I can't agree with this.

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The trouble with yeshivas is that most of them are rotten to the core. It goes without saying that the make believe yeshivas that are learning anything but Gemara are a joke. But even among the ones learning Gemara it has becomes a business. The idea of a real authentic yeshiva is a great idea but today almost all yeshivas are rotten with demonic religious teachers at their head.

A real revolution is in order. But where could it begin. It is hard to know there are a few real places out there like Ponovitch and Brisk and three NY Giants- Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. But a real revolution needs to be carried all over the world. Torah for its own sake--not for money. How to do this I do not know. But Obviously some one knew how to do this. Avraham Kalmonovitch, Rav Isaac Hutner, Rav Elazar Menachem Shach. How they did it, I do not know. But it must still be possible

)There is such a thing as trust in God with no effort. But I think the emphasis should go on the first part of the sentence. That is the effort aspect is not as essential as the trust in God part.

) In the Mishna of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi in Pirkei Avot we find two opinions. One is Torah with work. That is stated in the name of Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel. The other is Rabbi Nechunya Ben HaKaneh that ''The yoke of work  is removed from anyone who accepts on themselves the yoke of Torah.'' Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi is not deciding the halacha but rather bringing both opinions without a statement which one is right as is his custom in the Mishna.


) And we find that the Altar of Navardok actually had this happen with him. That was the story about the candle in the middle of the night. [He was doing is usual Hitbodadut which in his case meant Hitbodadut in the traditional sense of shaving a hut in the middle of  a forest and spending all day and night alone learning Torah and praying. When his candle ran out, someone knocked on the door and handed to him a candle!

) My own situation was I was in Israel--not doing great but managing. I decided at some point to go with the approach of ''Torah with work.'' That was obviously not happening in Israel, so I thought to get back to California  and do this ''Torah with work'' approach there. That was a disaster. As I was looking for work all the demonic, the religious teachers there told my wife to divorce me because I was not working and learning Torah!! At any rate, I learned a hard lesson about trust in God. If you have a situation in which you are trusting in God and learning Torah and somehow managing, it is mistake to let go off it. And I learned later that this is the universal experience of people that are trusting in God, and then let it go. They fall just as I did.

So what you can see is I think an amazing lesson. You might not be obligated in this level of trust in the first place. But if you have it and let it go, it is accounted as slap in the face of God. Thus if one is a yeshiva or kollel and doing what he knows in his heart for the sake of heaven, then he must not let it go.

) We find in Sanhedrin that Daniel ran away from Nebuchadnezzar because he was afraid of the verse ואת פסילי אלהיהם תשרפון באש [burn their idols in flames] and Daniel thought this could apply to himself after that fact that Nebuchadnezzar had bowed down to him. That is he thought he himself could be considered an object of worship and thus be liable to be burnt. So worship of God must not be confused with tying oneself to a tzadik.

“wives are being turned against their husbands, and a lot of money is being made.”

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“wives are being turned against their husbands, and a lot of money is being made.” Far more profit in indulging in vices than healthy solutions.

My thinking about this was that I was not going to be able to fight the system. I have mentioned before that the religious teachers were the direct cause of my wife's turning against me and that the troubling aspect of this is they claim they are pro family.  For example, "Why do people turn against those who fear God? Because they are listening to Torah scholars that are demons."  (תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים. This phrase in Hebrew from the Zohar packs a real punch that the English translation just can't duplicate.)

I have good reason though for minimizing the time I spend on this subject. I am afraid people might attribute this problem to the Torah itself. That I am sure is a natural reaction. But I try to defend the Oral and Written Law and try to show that, "Abuse of the Talmud does not cancel use."

My approach was this. Regardless of who convinced her to try to turn me into a slave I decided freedom was better than slavery. She wanted to go on strike, I simply found a peachy strike breaker.

[This opinion can be supported from the example of Calev ben Yefuna. People know this person mainly as the friend of Joshua (that the Bible testifies about that he was a total tzadik). Few learn the Books of Chronicles where the list of his girl friends is given. I figure what is good enough for Calev ben Yefuna is good enough for me. See the Gra on Shulchan Aruch Even Ezer who brings this example.)