Study Bava Metzia folio 19A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
אירכס ליה גיטא בי מדרשא. אמר: אי סימנא – אית לי בגויה, אי טביעות עינא – אית לי בגויה. אהדרוה ניהליה. אמר: לא ידענא אי משום סימנא אהדרוה ניהלי, וקא סברי סימנין דאורייתא. אי משום טביעות עינא אהדרוה ניהלי, ודוקא צורבא מדרבנן. אבל איניש דעלמא – לא.
lost a bill of divorce, which had been given to him to deliver, in the study hall. When it was found, he said: If they request a distinguishing mark, I have one for it. If it depends on visual recognition, I have methods of recognition for it. They returned the bill of divorce to him. He said afterward: I do not know if they returned it to me due to the distinguishing mark that I supplied, and they hold that distinguishing marks are used to return lost items by Torah law, or if they returned it to me due to my visual recognition, and it was specifically because I am a Torah scholar, as Torah scholars are relied upon when they say that they recognize an item, but an ordinary person would not be relied upon to recognize the item and have it returned to him.
גופא: מצא גט אשה בשוק, בזמן שהבעל מודה – יחזיר לאשה. אין הבעל מודה – לא יחזיר לא לזה ולא לזה.
§ The Talmud discusses the matter itself cited above: If one found a woman’s bill of divorce in the marketplace, in a case when the husband admits that he wrote and gave it, the finder must return it to the wife. If the husband does not admit to this, the finder may neither return it to this one, the husband, nor to that one, the wife.
בזמן שהבעל מודה מיהא יחזיר לאשה. וליחוש שמא כתב ליתן בניסן ולא נתן לה עד תשרי, ואזל בעל זבין פירי מניסן ועד תשרי, ומפקא לגיטא דכתיב בניסן, ואתיא למטרף לקוחות שלא כדין.
In any event, the baraita states that when the husband admits that he wrote and gave it, the finder must return it to the wife. The Talmud challenges: But let us suspect that perhaps he wrote the bill of divorce intending to give it in Nisan, but did not give it to her until Tishrei, and the husband went and sold the produce of his wife’s property in the interim, between Nisan and Tishrei, since the divorce had not yet taken effect. And the wife might then produce the bill of divorce, which he wrote in Nisan, and come to repossess the produce from the purchasers unlawfully.