Rav Chisda's Rabbinic Theft (article summary)

This past week, my article discussed applying Rav Chisda’s position, that Rabbinic law has a Biblical impact, to his statement on Gittin 61a, that Rabbi Yossi’s gezel gamur is midivreihem, that is, on a Biblical level.

You can read it here (flipdocs, HTML, paid Substack).

To summarize.

(1) In the Mishnah, in three separate items (A, B, C), the Tanna Kamma and Rabbi Yossi argue about a specific weakly acquired item. The Tanna Kamma says that it is forbidden to take it as darchei shalom, the ways of peace. Rabbi Yossi says that it is gezel gamur, absolute theft.

(2) Amoraim in the first and second generation don’t weigh in on the Mishnah, but Rav Chisda, a Suran second / third generation Amora weighs in to reinterpret Rabbi Yossi, that his gezel gamur is Rabbinic. If this strange assertion is so, then what is the practical distinction from darchei shalom, which also seems Rabbinic. And the Talmudic Narrator explains.

(3) I suggest it is specifically the Suran Rav Chisda because he has a different position, described elsewhere, arguing with Pumpeditan Rabba bar Nachmani. Rav Chisda asserts that Rabbinic law has standing on a Biblical level, so a rabbinic mamzer can marry a Biblical mamzeret, and rabbinic invalidation of terumah causes it to revert to a Biblical tevel status. Here too, he could be reading into Rabbi Yossi a basis for his position. Because the rabbis wanted the find of a cheresh, shoteh vekatan to not be stolen, because of darchei shalom concerns, it is rabbinically theirs, and so midivreihem, from their words, it also has Biblical standing, and can be called gezel gamur.

(4) This is related to my column from three weeks back, about Rav Shizvi, who was Rav Chisda’s student from Rav Chisda’s town, who spoke about karet midivreihem, rabbinically-imposed Divine smiting / cutting-off. The Rabbis laughed but Rava came to his defense. And I gave my own, Rav Chisda-based defense. See the summary post here:

(5) Separate from this, operating off of our printed texts and manuscripts, the piska (which is the citation of the Mishnah before the two dots) would apply Rav Chisda’s statement only to dispute (B) in the Mishnah, about the find of a cheresh, shoteh and katan. After all, it only quotes the Mishnah on B, not on A.

However, the piska is Geonic or later, and may (in general) also differ between manuscripts. Even those who wouldn’t argue on the gemara might be willing to argue on the piska, with practical effect on the actual halacha.

Here, shouldn’t Rabbi Yossi consistently define gezel gamur?

Tangentially, in cases in the sugya where the gemara says everyone agrees that it is gezel gamur, is this Biblical or Rabbinic?

(6) Maharam Schiff argues that the piska should only quote Rabbi Yossi but not assign it to B. Therefore, it should be on A. (And maybe we would also say B and C?)

He points to the Rif and Rosh who have this as their girsa.

(7) See the two parallel sugyot which cite our Mishnah, with Rabbi Yossi, together with Rav Chisda and then the Gemara’s explanation of the pragmatic difference.

This shows that, according to the Narrator of those sugyot at least, Rav Chisda was dealing with case B, cheresh shoteh vekatan. Should it also apply to A and C? What would Maharam Schiff answer to this?

Also, the Narrator assumes that we maintain like Rav Chisda, enough to attack Shmuel’s position with it. That’s an endorsement of Rav Chisda. And would then disagree with my suggestion that it the unique Rav Chisda, against Rabba, about Rabbinic law on the Biblical level.