One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הלכות זכיה ומתנה
Zechiyah u'Matanah 1-3
Sefer Kinyan · Ownerless Property and Gifts · who acquires property that belongs to no one, which act and which intent the law requires, and when a gift becomes binding
13
Years of fruit that acquired nothing
1
Spade stroke takes a bounded field
2
Water openings mean fish, not farming
4
Tests a valid condition must pass
Ch 1Taking Hold of What Nobody Owns
- Ownerless goes to the first hand. Grass, trees and wild fruit growing of themselves in deserts, rivers and streams belong to no one, and whoever takes hold first acquires; so too fish, fowl and wild beasts, though not those held in another man's vivarium, where taking them is robbery however large the enclosure (1:1-2)
- A convert with no Jewish child leaves no heir. His estate is neither inherited nor taken by a court; it becomes ownerless and the first to take hold acquires it, and a neighbor has no right of pre-emption, because what was received is a gift and not a sale (1:6)
- The intent must match the act. Taking hold of one of two fields intending to acquire both gets only the field touched; intending to acquire only the other gets neither. Taking hold of the deed of sale acquires the parchment alone (1:7-9)
- Marked borders, one spade. Where the boundaries are clear, one spade thrust anywhere inside takes the whole field; where they are not, only the strip a team of oxen plows before turning back. A boundary marker, stream or irrigation ditch cuts the claim off, and where the sovereign's law recognizes only the recorded name we follow the sovereign (1:10-11, 1:14-15)
RememberFish that jump into a boat belong to its owner, because a boat is a protected courtyard and not a moving one: the boat does not move itself, the water moves it (1:5)
Ch 2Which Acts Count, and Why
- Eating the produce never acquires ownerless land. It establishes a purchase but nothing here: a woman ate a date palm's fruit for thirteen years and lost the tree to the man who performed one piece of work on the tree itself (2:1-2)
- Slight acts suffice where they would not for a buyer. Plastering a cubit of wall opposite the entrance, making a design, setting out mattresses, or plowing only to leave the field fallow all acquire, though none would establish a purchase (2:3-4)
- The work is read for the intent. Pruning both sides of the vine acquires and one side does not; gathering the small stones with the large acquires and the large alone does not; one water opening acquires, while a second outlet shows he came for fish (2:4-8)
- Benefit that arrives by itself acquires nothing. Sowing seed in rows fails, and so does raising a partition over one that later sinks, because the act was worthless when done and became useful only through the ordinary course of nature (2:10-11)
RememberBuild the palaces and you own nothing; set up the doors and you own all of it, because stones on the land are not a useful fence while the entrance stands open (2:9)
Ch 3Gifts: The Word Is Not the Deed
- Words do not give. A gift is acquired only through the acts that transfer a sale: lifting movable property, drawing what is not lifted, and for land an act of ownership or a deed of gift reaching the recipient's hand. Until then either side may retract (3:1)
- Unless nothing needs to change hands. Waiving a debt, or giving the recipient an object already in his safekeeping, is final on words alone, as is telling a debtor to pay the sum to a third party (3:2-3)
- Define the gift or it fails entirely. "Land from my property" or "all my property with exceptions" acquires nothing, and the recipient may not fall back on the least valuable field; "a portion worth this much in that field" acquires, collected from its poorest part (3:5)
- Conditions are strictly formed. Restated both ways, the positive before the negative, the condition before the deed, and possible to fulfill, or it is void as if never said. A gift conditioned on being returned is valid, yet "return it to me" voids a consecration that plain "return it" would permit (3:6-10)
RememberA gift to a married woman or a Canaanite servant lands with the husband or the master, but earmarking what the gift is for shuts them out completely (3:12-14)