{"id":44046,"date":"2024-04-12T01:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T08:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=44046"},"modified":"2024-04-10T15:14:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T22:14:15","slug":"mitzvah-to-return-lost-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2024\/04\/12\/mitzvah-to-return-lost-items\/","title":{"rendered":"Mitzvah to return lost items"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the winter and spring in Winnipeg, sometimes one sees a child\u2019s toy or a colourful mitten attached to a tree or hedge along a sidewalk. These are lost items. The neighbourly thing to do when you see something in a snowbank or on the packed snowy sidewalk is to pick it up and prop it up at adult eye level. It helps others. Maybe it will stop toddlers\u2019 tears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our household found somebody\u2019s bike lock key last fall. This was harder to post. We took a piece of paper and wrote \u201cIs this your key?\u201d on it in large capital letters. Using clear tape, we attached the key and the sign to a powerline pole. A long time passed. One day, someone finally found their key. Relieved, we took down the sign.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been studying the Babylonian talmudic tractate of Baba Metzia, which covers civil law, including the rules around how to deal with lost items. It examines details that I often ponder. For instance, if a person finds an inanimate object, it has different obligations attached than if one finds an animal. We must return lost animals. If we don\u2019t know how to return them, the finder must care for the animal, including feeding and watering the animal. If the animal\u2019s upkeep is a burden, provisions exist for selling the animal and keeping the money to compensate the person who lost their animal. The particulars can be complex.<\/p>\n

I became interested in a category that isn\u2019t easy to describe \u2013 an object that isn\u2019t alive or animate but still needs care. Things like books, which, in the days of the Talmud, were scrolls made of parchment made from animals. The finder had to rotate the scrolls occasionally to maintain them until they could return them. The finder couldn\u2019t use the scrolls for study in a way that might cause undue wear on these hand-scribed texts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing in this category, in Bava Metzia 29b, says: \u201cIf one found a garment, he shakes it once in thirty days and he spreads it out for its sake, to ventilate it, but he may not use it as a decoration for his own prestige.\u201d As someone who makes and cares for natural fibre textiles (handspun and knit sweaters, for instance), I understood this immediately. Clothing wasn\u2019t mass produced then. There were no factories. Everyone used spindles and spun and wove clothing. It wasn\u2019t fast fashion. Clothes took skill and a lot of time to make. So, if someone found a garment, he knew its value. It wasn\u2019t disposable. He must keep it well-aired, to be sure it was clean and cared for, and not attracting destructive pests like moths. Since he didn\u2019t own or make it, he also couldn\u2019t use the garment himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bava Metzia also explores when someone loses a garment and \u201cdespairs\u201d of its return. That is, when one gives up entirely on getting it back.<\/p>\n

For anyone who has seen images of the destroyed cars, homes and belongings left after Oct. 7 on the kibbutzim in southern Israel or from the Nova festival, these details hit hard. Some Israelis from these areas escaped with their lives but have \u201cdespaired\u201d of ever getting back what they lost, they don\u2019t want to return and try to reclaim things. Others asked for help or sifted through the remains of their homes to find precious items. Still others have managed to return home to their belongings and restart their lives.<\/p>\n

This despair and reclamation reminded me of my in-laws and their stories of displacement after the Second World War. Their possessions, buried or left behind years earlier in Poland, were impossible to claim. Non-Jews had moved into their homes and taken their things. After four years in five different displaced persons\u2019 camps, my father-in-law, his sisters and parents moved to the United States. Decades later, my husband\u2019s grandmother would describe her family\u2019s bakery in Mezritch and what they lost. Even in her despair, there was an acknowledgement that she worked daily to let go of that loss, and be grateful for a new, rich life for her family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This family refugee story, of loss and rebuilding, contrasts sharply with the UNRWA concept of intergenerational Palestinian refugee status. As Jewish communities have been forced to move over thousands of years, we have, perhaps, been lucky to have these talmudic guidelines, now 1,500 to 2,000 years old, on how we can claim lost items and how we can accept loss and move on. As we tell the Passover story, we remind ourselves of the many times our people have had to leave everything behind and start again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Teaching how to navigate lost items starts young. A PJ Library book sent to our children, called Sara Finds a Mitzva<\/i>, helped us with this. Sara, the protagonist, follows through with the mitzvah<\/i> (commandment) to return lost items when she finds a toy duck. She tours her Orthodox New York City neighbourhood to find the duck\u2019s owner. My kids loved this book and its beautiful illustrations, which offered glimpses of my mother\u2019s childhood, as well as taught a valuable lesson.<\/p>\n

We also work with our children to help them understand that sometimes things go missing, and how to move on. After all, we say, it\u2019s just a thing. People matter more than things. With war on our minds, we must focus on what counts most. I am praying for the safe return of the Israeli hostages. We cannot fall prey to despair \u2013 our tradition teaches that, when we despair, we have given up hope of an eventual return. Further, we must make sense of a situation where thousands of Israelis have lost their physical belongings but must now make a new life for themselves. Across the border, there are civilians in Gaza who must also rebuild their homes and lives after the war.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to study the rabbis\u2019 ancient debates as an intellectual exercise. It\u2019s another thing altogether to return pets and livestock, find belongings, and make new households amid this destruction. We have a history of past loss that offers guidance, as those affected by war are physically finding their way through this difficult experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We must work together to find new paths after loss. Even if it\u2019s familiar territory, as Jews, it doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy. Perhaps each of us, like Sara in the children\u2019s book, can be lucky and find something \u2013 whether it\u2019s physical or intangible. Then we, too, can do the mitzvah of returning lost things, and observe Passover, too. Creating a joyful holiday after trauma also offers a third mitzvah, that of tikkun olam<\/i>, or \u201crepairing the world\u201d \u2013 bringing a bit of joy back to someone who needs it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joanne Seiff<\/b> has written regularly for the <\/i>Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/i>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the winter and spring in Winnipeg, sometimes one sees a child\u2019s toy or a colourful mitten attached to a tree or hedge along a sidewalk. These are lost items. The neighbourly thing to do when you see something in a snowbank or on the packed snowy sidewalk is to pick it up and prop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23130,3076,23128,4330,23129,9779,22725,2231],"class_list":["post-44046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-bava-metzia","tag-education","tag-hamas-terror-attacks","tag-israel","tag-loss","tag-mourning","tag-oct-7","tag-talmud"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}