Saturday 3 December 2016

Bava Metzia 68: Borrowing Animals

We begin our daf with examples of business dealings in different places.  In some areas, borrowing/lending practices might be considered forms of 'collecting interest' in other places.  A new Mishna teaches us that a lender cannot give a borrower items to sell where the profit will be shared.  One cannot give another person eggs to be warmed under another person's hen where the profit is shared, either.  These and other examples are said to be different ways of collecting interest.

The Gemara elaborates on what might not be counted as paying interest.  When a lender is paid as a labourer, his involvement should not lead to the payment of interest.  But what kind of labourer?  Perhaps an idle labourer,  who would be diverted from his usual labour to perform an easier task for the same wage.  The rabbis use this opportunity to discuss what should count as payment.  A person cannot get away with feeding his labourer some dates in lieu of payment, for example.  Women who rent out their chickens to sit on and warm other women' eggs are not charging interest, we learn, unless the borrower is made to care for the chickens (feeding, cleaning, etc).

We end our daf with the rabbis' discussions about amounts of money and claiming ownership of borrowed items.  One of the more jarring conversation has to do with the dung left behind by an animal while it is being borrowed.  Dung can be used as fertilizer - but what if it is not used in that way?  If a person cleans away the dung, isn't it obvious that the dung cannot count toward payment.

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