Question

It is possible that the Rabbi is already familiar with this, but if not, in the file He'arot there is a description of an ukimta in Bava Metzia 12a that matches the Rabbi’s approach to ukimtas remarkably well: "Our Mishnah: The found object of his minor son or daughter, the found object of his Canaanite male or female slave, and the found object of his wife—these belong to him. But the found object of his adult son or daughter, the found object of his Hebrew male or female slave, and the found object of his wife whom he divorced, even though he has not yet paid the marriage settlement—these belong to them. The Gemara: The found object of his Hebrew male or female slave belongs to themselves. Why? Why should they not be like a laborer? For it was taught: A laborer’s found object belongs to himself. In what case is this said? When he told him, ‘Weed with me today,’ ‘Hoe with me today’; but if he told him, ‘Do work for me today,’ his found object belongs to the employer. Mar son of Rabbi Chiyya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: Here we are dealing with a slave who pierces pearls, whose master does not want to reassign him to other work."
The author of He'arot writes as follows: “At first glance this is puzzling, because the tanna wanted to teach us the law of the found object of a Hebrew slave, yet in the Mishnah he did not teach the law of an ordinary Hebrew slave at all, but only the law of a slave who pierces pearls, and he taught it in unqualified language. He should have taught both laws. One can answer, based on the above, that in truth the law for every Hebrew slave is that his found object belongs to himself, since we do not say of him, ‘what a slave acquires, his master acquires,’ as we do regarding a Canaanite slave. Rather, the Gemara asks: granted, that is indeed the law of a slave מצד עצמו, but every Hebrew slave also has the status of a laborer, since the greater includes the lesser, and a laborer’s found object belongs to his master, because he was hired on that understanding. And it answers that the Mishnah is speaking about the law of a slave and not about the law of a laborer, and you can have a slave who does not have the status of a laborer, such as one who pierces pearls.”