One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת גְּזֵלָה וַאֲבֵדָה
Robbery and Lost Property · Chapters 10-12
Sefer Nezikin · The Uninvited Improver • The Duty to Return • Wages, Not Losses
100
Times over you return
the same bolting animal
1/4
Of seized land owed back
to its original owner
1
P'rutah: below this value,
no duty to return at all
200
Zuz saved for a neighbor
while your own 100 drowned
Ch 10Seized Land, and the Uninvited Improver
- A forced sale can stick. Where a violent gentile seized a Jew's field over a real debt and sold it to another Jew, the owner cannot expropriate it from the purchaser, provided he admits the claim was true, two Jewish witnesses confirm it, or a ruler existed who could have summoned the seizer and the owner never sued. The buyer's answer is, why did you not sue him under the law of the land. (10:1-2)
- A quarter goes back. Land ceded to ransom lives from an oppressor sells about a fourth under value, so whoever buys it must give the original owner a fourth of the land or a third of the funds: 10 zuz back on a 30 zuz purchase, or that quarter is held as property obtained by robbery. The owner has first refusal unless he lacks the means or twelve months pass. (10:3)
- The squatter is still paid. Plant trees uninvited in a field fit for trees and the owner pays what a person would give to have them planted; in ground unfit for them the improvement is evaluated and the planter is judged at a disadvantage. The owner may say uproot and go, but the planter may not uproot, since that weakens the land. The geonim applied the same to building in a courtyard. (10:4-6)
- Permission flips the evaluation. Enter with permission and he is judged at an advantage, reimbursed for his expenses or for the rise in value, whichever is greater, even in unfit ground. A husband tilling his wife's property and a partner tilling a shared field count as permitted. A sharecropper brought in by a husband is cut off when the husband is. (10:7, 10:12)
RememberNo collection without an oath on his expenses, sworn holding a sacred object, unless he asks the judges to price the wood, stone, mortar and wages at the lowest standard, in which case he collects with no oath.
Ch 11The Duty to Return, and Where It Lapses
- One positive, two negatives. Returning a lost object is a positive commandment from "and you shall certainly return it"; leaving it transgresses "do not see your brother's ox and ignore it," and keeping it adds "do not rob." It holds even where the owner eats non-kosher meat for his own satisfaction, and lapses only for the rebel, the heretic, the idol worshiper and the public violator of the Sabbath. (11:1-2)
- The edges of the nation. An idolater's lost article may be kept, yet returned to sanctify God's name it is praiseworthy, and where keeping it would desecrate God's name it must be returned; for the ways of peace his vessels are brought in from the street. His own error in accounting may be used, never caused, and only after you say out loud that you are relying on his figures. (11:3-5)
- Where the duty lapses. Lost at the bed of the sea or in a flooding river, since it is lost to all men. Worth less than a p'rutah. Intentionally abandoned, a wallet tossed in the road or a cow left untied in a doorless shed, which still may not be taken. In a majority gentile city, found on a thoroughfare, a market or anywhere crowds gather. Meat carried off by a fowl. (11:7-12)
- Once you begin, you are bound. Spur the animal on and your dignity stops being an argument; return it a hundred times if it bolts a hundred times, since the verse doubles the word return. Care for a live animal until it stands secure in the owner's domain. A priest does not become impure for it, and a son returns it even against his father's instruction. (11:13-19)
RememberAn elder may be excused by his own dignity, but whoever seeks the good and upright path returns it at all times, even where carrying it is unbecoming to him.
Ch 12Triage, Wages, and the Attacked Caravan
- Your own loss comes first. Where only one can be saved, your own takes priority over your neighbor's, your father's and your teacher's; where both can be saved, save both. Between father and teacher, the father if he is equal in wisdom, otherwise the primary teacher from whom most of his Torah came. (12:1-2)
- Wages, not losses. Let your 100 zuz donkey go to save a colleague's worth 200 and you collect only the wage fit for your effort; negate a dinar of work to recover an article worth 100 and you are paid as an idled worker of your own trade. (12:3-4)
- Leverage earns nothing. Pour out your wine to catch spilling honey and you are paid a wage; carry empty jars and demand half the honey and the agreement counts as spoken facetiously, because you caused yourself no loss. A fugitive pays the boatman the fare, but a fisherman told to stop fishing and row collects the whole promised dinar. (12:5-7)
- Rescue and declaration. Where the owners could not have saved their goods from an armed force, the one who exerts himself has rescued them for himself; where they could have, the goods go back to them even if he declared otherwise; where it was possible but difficult, his declaration decides, and the same words dissolve a partnership or end an employment. (12:8-10)
RememberRansom to an armed force is apportioned by the value of each man's goods and not by the head, jettisoned cargo by weight and not value, and a man who lost his donkey is given another donkey rather than cash, since nobody guards two the way he guards one.