Q&A: Rava’s Reed
Rava’s Reed
Question
Hello to his honored eminence, our master of exalted worth (and if the syntax is off, one may creatively interpret it),
my soul longs to ask a question, and I would be glad to know what our master thinks. In the case of Rava’s reed (Nedarim 25a), the claimant broke the defendant’s reed. I was asked by someone: seemingly, what would be the law regarding the reed that was broken? Would the claimant, who broke it out of anger, be liable for it?
The questioner argued that in the end, by breaking it (even though he did not know that the breaking would restore his money to him), he recovered his money, so why should he have to pay for the reed?
I would be glad to know what the Rabbi thinks, and if possible to explain in detail so that I can understand, agree, and stand behind our master’s argument. Thank you.
Answer
I don’t understand why the lender should not have to pay. He broke the borrower’s property. The fact that the borrower was pleased that he broke it is irrelevant. He would have been much more pleased had he opened it without breaking it.
Discussion on Answer
Who says that was the only way? Just as the money was put in, it could also come out. As I wrote, there was a way to open it without breaking it.
Possibly. But in the end, it never would have been discovered. The person broke it and in that way got his money. Why should he pay for that? In the case of “a person may enforce his own rights,” it is obvious that we would say that if this is the only way to do it (since otherwise we would never know that the money was hidden, and he himself swore and is exempt from paying), then he can do it. So why should he have to pay?
I’d be glad to understand more. Thank you.
I answered.
I apologize, but I did not quite merit to understand the answer. Let me ask it differently: assuming this was the only way to get the money back (and in no other way could the lender recover his money), what would the Rabbi say?
If that were the only way, then one would have to discuss the law of a person enforcing his own rights. If he did so unintentionally, is he exempt or not? That can be discussed from several angles. There are halakhic decisors who wrote regarding “a transgression for the sake of Heaven” that the exemption applies only if he did so intentionally for the sake of Heaven (although I previously wrote here that I disagree). And likewise in the passage about one who bent down and whispered (Bava Batra 33a), the medieval authorities (Rishonim) discussed whether, when a person fabricated false evidence for himself in order to extract money that legally belongs to him, he acted properly and we give him his money, or not.
All of this is before we even get into the conditions laid down by the Talmud and the halakhic decisors for a person enforcing his own rights. Some wrote that he must be able to prove it in a religious court. And they also wrote that this must be a situation in which self-help is necessary (he has no time to go to the religious court and sue).
Bottom line: the matter requires extensive clarification, and this is not the place.
Thank you for the response. Not from the angle of “he was pleased,” but because in the end he got the money out in the only way it could have been gotten out — by breaking the vessel. So true, initially we would not have told him to do that, and he also did not do it with the intention of retrieving the money, but once he retrieved it in this way, which is the only way that would allow him to get his money back — why should he pay for that? (After all, he did not know that the money was hidden inside the reed.)
Perhaps one could bring a source for this from the law of “a person may enforce his own rights” — there, once the only way for me to get the money is to act on my own behalf and not wait for the religious court, that is permitted. So here too, the person enforced his own rights; admittedly, that only became clear retroactively and was not the case from the outset — but in the end, that is what happened here.