Friday, March 8, 2024

Two types of leading an animal TB Baba Metzia 8-9

We previously learned the three different ways to indicate gemirat da’at, finalize intention, ownership from one person to another. If the object is small, all the person has to do is pick it up and carry it four amot. If the object is too big to pick up like a cow, all the person has to do is pull it the four amot. If the object is unmovable like a house or intangible like the conditions written in a ketubah, a kinyan sudar is used.

Dappim TB Baba Metzia 8 and 9 litigate whether riding is another form of acquiring the animal. To appreciate the discussion we have to understand the technical terms of riding (רָכוּב -rakhuv) and leading (מַנְהִיג -manhig). Rakhuv is riding passively like being a passenger seated in the back of a wagon. Manhig is actively leading the animal by calling to it or directing it to go by pulling on the reins.

Our dappim analyzes whether Shmuel’s is correct saying that rakhuv isn’t a method of acquisition. I’ll just share one example from today’s daf TB Baba Metzia 9.

Come and hear proof from a baraita that one can acquire an animal by sitting on it in a riding position: If one person is sitting in a riding position on a donkey and one other person is holding the reins, this one, the one sitting on the donkey, acquires the donkey, and that one, who is holding the reins, acquires the reins. Learn from it that one who sits in a riding position on an animal acquires it.

The Gemara rejects this: Here too, the reference is to one who is not only sitting on the donkey but who is also driving it with his feet by squeezing or kicking it.” (Sefaria.org translation) Think of a cowboy with spurs that jingle jangle and he uses the spurs to move the horse.

Even though the Gemara uses the language of rakhuv, the Gemara admits that there are two types of leading, one by pulling the animal by the reins and two by driving it while sitting on it. 

A person does not acquire an animal by passively riding upon it.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment