The Gemara and Tosphot in the beginning of Bava Metzia

When there is a doubt about money the law is in some cases to divide, in other cases to let the money or object remain where it is until Elisha the prophet comes. The Gemara and Tosphot in the beginning of Bava Metzia deal with this.

One issue that come up is the מנה שלישית [the third hundred.] That is when two people come to a someone they trust and give him an envelope with three hundred dollars.  Then they return sometime later and each one says the 200 was mine and the hundred was of the other. Then he gives each 100 and the last hundred he keeps until some proof is brought, one way or the other. But if each comes in and separately give him their own envelope. Then he forgets who gave him the $200 and who gave the $100, then he has to give 200 to each and pay from his own pocket.

The question Rav Shach brings from the last Mishna in the first chapter of Bava Metzia מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח a person finds a document of a loan among his documents and does not remember who gave it to him and the lender and borrower both ask for it. There he leaves it. Is this not the same as the above case where he has to pay from his own pocket since he forgot?

Rav Shach answers the case of the loan reverts to a verbal loan in which case the lender is believed to say "I paid". So we leave the document and give it to neither.

The question here is that most of the time in Bava Metzia when issues about money that we do not know to whom it belongs, the Mishnas goes like Sumchos [ממון המוטל בספק חולקים] , not the sages ( המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) [like on page 100 side a]. But sometimes the mishna is a case where even the Sages agree. Sometimes the Gemara deals with this issue, and sometimes leaves it. So that last mishna might be like the sages that you leave the document where it is because it is המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

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One issue that come up is the מנה שלישית . That is when two people come to a someone they trust and give him an envelope with three hundred שקלים.  Then they return sometime later and each one says the 200 was mine and the hundred was of the other. Then he gives each 100 and the last hundred he keeps until some proof is brought, one way or the other. But if each comes in and separately give him their own envelope. Then he forgets who gave him the 200 and who gave the 100, then he has to give 200 to each and משלם from his own pocket.

The question רב שך brings from the last משנה in the first chapter of בבא מציעא מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח a person finds a document of a loan among his documents and does not remember who gave it to him and the lender and borrower both ask for it. There he leaves it. Is this not the same as the above case where he has to pay from his own pocket since he forgot?

רב שך answers the case of the loan reverts to a verbal loan in which case the lender is believed to say: "I paid". So we leave the document and give it to neither.

The question here is that most of the time in בבא מציעא when issues about money that we do not know to whom it belongs, the משנה goes like סומכוס ממון המוטל בספק חולקים, not the sages  המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) like on page 100 side a. But sometimes the משנה is a case where even the Sages agree. Sometimes the גמרא deals with this issue, and sometimes leaves it. So that last משנה might be like the sages that you leave the document where it is because it is המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

נושא אחד שעולה הוא מנה שלישית. זה כאשר שני אנשים מגיעים למישהו שהם סומכים עליו ונותנים לו מעטפה עם שלוש מאות שקלים. ואז הם חוזרים זמן מה אחר כך וכל אחד אומר שה -200 היו שלי והמאה היו של השני. ואז הוא נותן לכל אחד את 100 ואת המאה האחרונה שהוא שומר עד שמביאים הוכחה כלשהי, כך או אחרת. אבל אם כל אחד נכנס ונפרד נותנים לו מעטפה משלהם. ואז הוא שוכח מי נתן לו את ה200 ומי נתן את ה100, ואז הוא צריך לתת 200 לכל אחד ומשלם מכיסו.

השאלה שרב שך מביא מהמשנה האחרון בפרק הראשון בבא מציעא מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח (אדם מוצא מסמך של הלוואה בין מסמכיו ואינו זוכר מי נתן לו המלווה או הלווה. שניהם מבקשים את המסמך. שם הוא משאיר את זה. האם זה אינו זהה למקרה דלעיל בו עליו לשלם מכיסו מאז ששכח?

רב שך עונה על המקרה של ההלוואה חוזר להלוואה מילולית ובמקרה זה מאמינים שהמלווה שאומר: "שילמתי". אז אנחנו עוזבים את המסמך ונותנים אותו לאף אחד מהם.

השאלה כאן היא שרוב הזמן בבבא מציעא כשנושאים על כסף שאיננו יודעים למי הוא שייך, המשנה הולכת כמו סומכוס (ממון המוטל בספק חולקים), ולא החכמים (המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) כמו בעמוד 100 בצד א. אבל לפעמים זה מקרה שבו אפילו החכמים מסכימים. לפעמים הגמרא עוסקת בנושא זה ולעיתים עוזבת אותה. כך שבמקרה האחרון של שיכחת השטר יכול להיות כמו החכמים שאתה משאיר את המסמך במקום שהוא נמצא בגלל שהוא המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

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I suggest getting up in the morning and saying right away the Shema [first paragraph], then a bit of Musar/ Ethics. [That is from some few paragraphs of what one feels he needs strength and encouragement in.] Then the Oral Law [in such a way as to get through the oral law, i.e. two Talmuds and Midrashim]. Then what the Rishonim essential Physics and Metaphysics. That approach you can see in Chovot Levavot and More Nevuchim/ the Guide for the Perplexed.  

As for halacha -my approach is that any opinion in the Gemara counts as Halacha unless openly dismissed. רב שלמה לוריא מחבר של החכמת שלמה  Shelomo  Luria writes [in his commentary on the Gemara which is printed with every Gemara at the bottom of the page of the Mahrasha] that it is better to decide the halacha straight from the Gemara even if one is wrong, rather than to decide from the Shulchan Aruch even if that is right. He thought the whole idea of taking away the authority form the Gemara into later on books was a terrible idea.

the problem with USA universities.

 Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind pointed out the problem with USA universities. Maybe it all starts from philosophy as Ayn Rand suggested. If Ayn Rand is right the place to begin would be a different kind of Philosophy program. My suggestion would be the steps leading to the Kant Fries School of thought. That is Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Leonard Nelson.

But to ignore philosophy does not seem like a good idea. The Mediaeval approach to combine faith and reason seems like to the best idea to me.

I just noticed in the LeM of Rav Nahman vol. I 64 the subject of the limitation of reason which comes up in Kant. The way Rav Nahman deals with this is in relation to the "Halal Hapanui" the empty space.

[You have to say two opposite things about it. One: That God withdrew his presence from within for otherwise there would have been no room for the creation of all the worlds. But it did exist and nothing can exist without God creating it and so God presence was there.] Kant reached his conclusion about the limitation of reason from John Locke that said there   are primary characteristics and secondary. Kant noticed even what Locke thought were primary really also depend on the observer. So what really is the "ding an sich" [thing in itself]? There we have the limit of reason. Now reason is not limited to what can be observed. Nor just what is contained in definition. It can perceive universals. It can figure out synthetic a priori. But the limit is conditions of possible experience.

 Right in the beginning of Bava Metzia in Tosphots and on page 7, there is raised the issue of when the law is to divide, when "who is stronger", when we say it should remain as it is until Eliyahu comes.

So one of the issues is this a document of a loan is in the hands of a middle man and he has forgotten who gave it to him, the lender or the borrower. There we say it should remain where it is until Eliyahu come.

Rav Shach asks why is this any different from an object that was given to a middle man to help until the people that gave it to him come to get it. And he has forgotten who gave it to him and he gives it to one and pays the other since it was his fault for not writing it down or remembering who gave it to him. 

The answer of Rav Shach I admit is a bit  hard to understand. The document he says has a category of a verbal loan and that makes sense since the only difference between a verbal loan and one in a document is the borrower can say "I paid" in a verbal loan. The written loan he can not say that because the lender can ask, "Then why do I still have the document?"  [So in the case the document is in the hands of teh third party the lender can not say that.] Still it is hard to understand why here also we do not say it is the fault of the middle man for not writing down who gave the document to him.

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