The Four Bailees and Their Three Sets of Laws
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The Rabbi’s Opening Post
The Four Bailees and Their Three Sets of Laws
Posted on 16/7/2006
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The Four Bailees and Their Laws Are Three
The Mishnah at the end of Shevuot and in Bava Metzia 93a establishes that there are four types of bailees. The Gemara in Bava Metzia says that their laws are three (whether we say that a renter is a paid bailee or that he is an unpaid bailee). If so, why does halakhah (the Sages—from that very Mishnah onward, as well as the early and later authorities) treat them as four types? Perhaps you will say that this is because a renter is a different situation from the ordinary one (not contractual, at least with respect to the aspect of safekeeping), even though the laws of a paid bailee also apply to it. But there are several others of this sort: a creditor holding collateral, an artisan, a finder safeguarding a lost object, and the like. Why are they not counted as additional types?
At first glance, there must be something essentially different in the renter as opposed to the borrower and the paid bailee—either in the laws, or in the underlying legal nature, or in both. According to some of the early authorities, it is apparently possible to understand the renter as a borrower with an exemption from unavoidable accidents, and not as an ordinary paid bailee. The laws come out very similar to those of a paid bailee, but this is nevertheless a different legal essence.
My questions: 1. Does anyone know of someone who has already asked this question (why these are considered four types)? 2. Is there any halakhic difference between the laws of safekeeping for a renter and those of a paid bailee? And what about the other cases governed by the laws of a paid bailee (an artisan, collateral, a lost object)? I do not mean the fact that a renter may use the object, whereas for a paid bailee that would constitute misappropriation. That is a trivial difference that does not pertain to the laws of safekeeping but to the character of the contract. 3. In what respect are these counted as four types of bailees?
Source (the forum "Stop Here, Think"): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=1987005