Are There Editorial Notes in the Main Text of the Gemara?

Opening post by the rabbi

Are There Editorial Notes in the Main Text of the Gemara?

Posted on 10/11/2008

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Are there editorial notes in the main text of the Gemara?

I am currently studying the sugya of despair without awareness, and I have found there a rare phenomenon that caught my eye. This is the language of the Gemara (Bava Metzia 21b):

It was stated: Despair without awareness. Abaye said: It is not despair, and Rava said: It is despair. With regard to something that has an identifying mark, everyone agrees that it is not despair. And even though we hear that he eventually despairs, it is not despair, because when it came into the finder’s possession, it came into his possession unlawfully. For when he learns that it fell from him, he does not despair; he says: I have an identifying mark on it, I will give the identifying mark, and I will take it back. In the case of the surf of the sea and the flooding of a river, even though it has an identifying mark, the Torah permitted it, as we shall say later.

There is here a rare cross-reference by the editor (apparently) to the continuation of the sugya. On the face of it, the intention is to the statement brought later, on 24a:

And so Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar would say: One who rescues an item from a lion, from a bear, from a leopard, from a cheetah, and from the surf of the sea and the flooding of a river; one who finds an item on a main thoroughfare or in a large public square, or in any place where the multitudes are found there—these belong to him, because the owners despair of them.

For some reason, Rashi there points specifically to one of the ‘come and hear’ proofs brought in the sugya of despair without awareness:

Later—within this discussion: ‘From where is it derived that a lost item swept away by a river…’ etc.

And he is referring to the following ‘come and hear’ proof (22b):

Come and hear, for Rabbi Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Yishmael ben Yehotzadak: From where is it derived that a lost item swept away by a river is permitted? As it is written +Deuteronomy 22+ and so shall you do with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment, and so shall you do with every lost item of your brother that is lost from him and you find it—this means: that which is lost from him but available to everyone; this excludes one that is lost from him and not available to everyone.

By the way, this is the statement that decides the dispute, and from it we learn that the law follows Abaye (that despair without awareness is not considered despair).

This looks as though Rashi’s commentary (or a discussion and back-and-forth among wiki editors) slipped into the sugya (the wiki entry) itself.

My questions:

1. Does anyone know of other instances of editorial comment and reflexive self-reference within the Gemara itself?

2. If so, then where?

3. If not, then why indeed do we not find such notes?

4. And if not, then why does such a note appear specifically here?

5. What is the situation in the printed editions (I am weak when it comes to checking textual variants)?

6. Scholars have surely made a whole to-do out of this. Does anyone know a source?

Source (forum ‘Stop Here, Think’): http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=2514337