Q&A: Hello Rabbi. I studied Tosafot on Bava Kamma 66 regarding despair, which is not like full ownerless abandonment but only means that it is no longer considered in the owner's possession and control. I wanted to understand what intermediate state there is between complete ownerlessness and lack of ownership. After all, when there is no ownership, the object is automatically ownerless
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Hello Rabbi. I studied Tosafot on Bava Kamma 66 regarding despair, which is not like full ownerless abandonment but only means that it is no longer considered in the owner's possession and control. I wanted to understand what intermediate state there is between complete ownerlessness and lack of ownership. After all, when there is no ownership, the object is automatically ownerless
Question
Answer
I didn't understand the question. You began by saying that there is ownership, just no control. That itself is the definition. The Talmud itself distinguishes, regarding a stolen object, that neither the owner nor the thief can consecrate it: this one because it is not his, and that one because it is not in his possession. So you see that the concept of “possession/domain” (= control) is different from ownership.
Beyond that, Netivot writes regarding despair over a lost object that the meaning is not ownerless abandonment, but granting permission to anyone to acquire it. That too is an intermediate state between full ownership and ownerlessness.
A follow-up question (in the future, please add follow-ups here and not in a new thread):
Regarding the answer about despair and ownership: in my opinion this is different from “if one robbed and the owners had not despaired,” because there there really was no despair, and there is still a conceptual proprietary connection to the object. But in the case I brought, there is also despair, and in essence nothing is lacking for the ownership of the object to be negated. So I do not understand how this is different from an ordinary person who despairs of his property in the public domain.
My answer:
You asked whether there is an intermediate state between ownerlessness and ownership, and I answered that we see in the Talmud that there is. True, the Talmud is speaking about a case without despair but with theft, but there too there is still an intermediate state. My claim was that despair can also create such an intermediate state. Therefore I do not see why the distinction you raised here is relevant to the discussion.
I mentioned Netivot, who says something similar. If so, something really is still lacking here before full negation of ownership: there was no formal abandonment into ownerlessness.