May these words of Torah serve as a merit le’iluy nishmat Menachem Mendel Ben Harav Yoel David Balk, a”h.
This week we learned Bava Metzia 12 and 13. These are some highlights.
Bava Metzia 12: Gifting a lulav and etrog to a child
Our Gemara taught that if a child was supported by his father, if he would find a lost object, it would belong to his father. Nimukei Yosef taught that the same would be true about a gift. If I give an item as a gift to a child who is still being supported by his father, the gift belongs to the father. Even if the father himself would give the gift to the child it would revert back to the father’s ownership. The child does not have the ability to acquire it for himself since he is not independent.
Shevet Haleivi (8:152) pointed out that the Gemara in Tractate Sukkah (46b) teaches that in a community where there are few lulavim and etrogim and one set is used by many people through each one getting it as a gift on condition to give back, one should not first gift the set to a child. A child can take ownership of the lulav but he would not be able to transfer ownership of the lulav back or to anyone else. To fulfill the mitzvah of lulav on Sukkot, the four species must belong to the one who waves them. If it belongs to the child I could not fulfill my obligation with his items. According to our Gemara, we would have to say that the Gemara was talking about a child who was independent and not supported by his father. If the child was still eating in his father’s home, then the gift of the lulav to him was meaningless. It right away reverted to the father.
In light of this idea, how do we in our day fulfill the mitzvah of training our dependent children to fulfill the mitzvah of lulav? If we gift the lulav to them, it becomes ours again, for as dependent children they do not have the ability to own an item. If they cannot own their own property, how would they fulfill the mitzvah of lulav? Lulav must be lachem, the property of the one waving it, to fulfill the mitzvah.
Rav Vozner suggested that a child need not get all the details of a mitzvah right to fulfill the mitzvah of chinuch. He would fulfill his obligation with a borrowed lulav. If a father gifted a lulav to his son, the lulav would belong to the father; however, the son would be a borrower of the lulav and that would be enough to fulfill the obligation of training to fulfill the mitzvah of lulav. (Mesivta)
Bava Metzia 13: Can one recite a blessing on tefillin that he found in a genizah?
Our Gemara taught that if a promissory note was dropped and then found by others, a question has been created about the validity of the note. A valid loan document would not have been easily lost by the lender. The fact that the note was found in the street makes us think that there is something wrong with it. Perhaps it was written when the borrower intended to borrow but he did not actually borrow on time. Even though we do not have such fears about a loan document that is presented in court, since this document was lost we have reason to think it has problems.
Based on this Gemara, Shu”t Halachot Ketanot (Chelek Beit Siman 166) suggested a novel law. If someone finds tefillin that had been put into a genizah, a place for the disqualified holy writings, he should suspect that they are not kosher. Even if he brought them to a scribe and the sofer checked and found that all the letters were perfectly shaped and spaced, he should suspect that the tefillin were written with the wrong motivations or by a disqualified scribe. Our Gemara taught that finding a lost loan document is already reason to believe there was a disqualification in the document. So it is with tefillin. Why would anyone allow kosher tefillin to end up in a genizah? If the tefillin were in the place of the non-kosher holy writings, one must assume that they were in some way disqualified. One should not recite a blessing on such a pair.
Mishneh Halachot (Chelek 6 Siman 11) suggested that perhaps one could assume that the tefillin were kosher. Some have the practice that when a person passes away they take his tefillin, open the boxes and deposit them in the genizah. Perhaps these tefillin were kosher and they were placed in the genizah by followers of that custom. If the tefillin still had their straps attached to them they also should be kosher. If the tefillin were disqualified because of who wrote the parshiyot, or how he wrote the paragraphs, there would be no reason to put the straps away in the genizah. The straps would have been kosher. They should have taken the straps off and saved them for use on another pair, if the paragraphs were disqualified and the tefillin were being placed in the genizah due to their unusability. Therefore, if the straps are on the tefillin that you found in the genizah you may assume that the tefillin are kosher and yet somehow ended up in the genizah and that you may use them, as long as the scribe found the letters to be correctly written, and recite a blessing when putting them on. (Mesivta)
By Rabbi Zev Reichman
Rabbi Reichman teaches the Daf at East Hill Synagogue in Englewood.
