Study Bava Metzia folio 4B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
סלעים, דינרין. מלוה אומר חמש, ולוה אומר שלש. רבי שמעון בן אלעזר אומר: הואיל והודה מקצת הטענה – ישבע. רבי עקיבא אומר: אינו אלא כמשיב אבידה, ופטור.
If it is written in a promissory note that one borrowed an unspecified amount of sela’im, or that one borrowed an unspecified amount of dinars, and the creditor says: I lent you 5 sela, and the debtor says: You lent me only 3, in this case R' Shimon ben Elazar says: Since the debtor admitted to part of the claim, he takes an oath. R' Akiva says: Since the wording of the note indicates only that he owes two dinars, the minimum plural amount, by admitting that he owes 3 he is merely the equivalent of one returning a lost item, and he is exempt from taking an oath.
קתני מיהת: רבי שמעון בן אלעזר אומר, הואיל והודה מקצת הטענה – ישבע. טעמא דאמר שלש, הא שתים פטור, והאי שטר דקמודי ביה הילך הוא, ושמע מינה הילך פטור!
In any event, the baraita teaches that R' Shimon ben Elazar says: Since the debtor admitted to part of the claim, he takes an oath. This indicates that the reason that he is obligated to take an oath is specifically because he said that he owes 3 dinars, but had he admitted to owing only two, he would have been exempt from taking an oath. And concerning the minimal obligation recorded in this promissory note, to which he admits, which is two dinars, it is as though he said: Here you are. An obligation recorded in a promissory note is tantamount to an obligation concerning which the defendant says: Here you are. And therefore, conclude from it that one who says: Here you are, is exempt from taking an oath with regard to the part of the claim he denies.
The Talmud rejects this: No, actually I will say to you that even if he admitted that he owes two dinars he is obligated to take an oath, and the reason that the baraita teaches the dispute specifically with regard to the case of 3 dinars is not to exclude a case where he admits that he owes only two, but rather it is to exclude the opinion of R' Akiva, who says that he is the equivalent of one returning a lost item, and he is therefore exempt. Therefore, R' Shimon ben Elazar teaches us that he is considered like one who admits to part of the claim, and he is obligated to take an oath.