Rav Yosef's Penny Loafer
Transmutatis mutandis
In this week’s Daf Yomi column, I discuss Rav Yosef’s coin, commonly called פְּרוּטָה דְּרַב יוֹסֵף. That is how we refer to it in its three instances in Nedarim (33b and 34a), as well as in countless commentaries referring to the concept.
This concept is that someone who finds a lost article is responsible for it as a paid bailee rather than an unpaid bailee, and so is on the hook if it is stolen or lost. Why should the finder be thus obligated? Rav Yosef’s position (of paid bailee) is justified by the Talmudic Narrator on Bava Kamma 56b. Suppose you find a cow and are caring for it when a pauper knocks on your door. You’d normally give him a loaf of bread, a ריפתא. However, one engaged in one precept (caring for the lost item) is exempt from another precept (charity), so you are saved that loaf. That (potential) benefit is sufficient to transform you into a paid bailee.
How did the bread of Bava Kamma transform into a coin in Nedarim? Assuming it isn’t a special bread-coin (see above), perhaps it’s a convenient way of communicating that there is a minute value (a peruta being the smallest possible significant-value coin) which we must nevertheless be concerned with. However, note how the פרוטה and ריפתה share P, R, and T sounds. It is a phonetic anagram!
Another thing I note in my column is that in Bava Kamma, it is not clear-cut that this is Rav Yosef’s only explanation, in arguing with Rabba about paid vs. unpaid bailee. After setting up Rabba and Rav Yosef’s respective positions, two explanations are offered, in an expansion by the Talmudic Narrator. Thus:
רבה אמר כשומר חנם דמי מאי הנאה קא מטי ליה
Their respective opinions are explained: Rabba said that he is considered to be like an unpaid bailee because what benefit comes to him through safeguarding it? Therefore, he is just like any unpaid bailee.
רב יוסף אמר כש"ש דמי בההיא הנאה דלא בעיא למיתבי ליה ריפתא לעניא הוי כש"ש
Rav Yosef said that he is considered to be like a paid bailee on account of the benefit that he is not required to give bread to a poor person while looking after the lost item, since one who is engaged in one mitzva is exempt from performing another. Consequently, since there is some benefit involved in looking after the lost item, he is considered to be like a paid bailee.
איכא דמפרשי הכי רב יוסף אמר כש"ש דמי כיון דרחמנא שעבדיה בעל כורחיה הלכך כש"ש דמי
This is one interpretation, whereas there are those who explain like this: Rav Yosef said that he is considered to be like a paid bailee. Once the Merciful One obligates him against his will to look after lost items, the Torah presumably imposes the high standard of safeguarding on him. Therefore, he is considered to be like a paid bailee.
Who are those who explain in alternate manner? Are we talking about Talmudic Sages, Amoraim? Is this various contemporary Savoraim? Are we dealing with oral positions which are recorded, or something written?
I suspect that we are dealing with different texts (or else oral traditions), that are being merged together into a single text. For this, I’d point to the following fragment (courtesy of Hachi Garsinan; see third line down in the image):
In this variant text, the explanation of Rabba is followed immediately by only the second explanation of Rav Yosef. So my guess is that a scribe saw variant texts (or a garsan, Reciter, heard varying traditions), some with reason A and some with reason B, and encoded both in his text. Interestingly, Nedarim 33-34 is explained using only Rav Yosef’s position, not Rabba’s, and with only the first explanation.
Another interesting textual issue regarding Nedarim 33, which I don’t really discuss in the column, is R’ Ammi and R’ Assi’s titles. The Mishnah relates that even if Reuven vowed off benefit from Shimon, if one finds the other’s lost article, he may still return it. Did Reuven find Shimon’s article, or vice versa? Rabbi Ammi and Rabbi Ammi each take a position, and one position is related to Rav Yosef’s coin (or, bread). The target of the vow might not be able to return the vower’s object, because of the remote benefit of being spared paying a coin. I wonder whether Rabbi Ammi and Rabbi Assi, who originated in Babylonia as students of Rav and Shmuel, but early-on emigrated to Israel, would know of the Babylonian Amora Rav Yosef’s innovation, and find a way it can be. They occasionally came back.
But part of this question of scholastic interaction is based on their identities. Are Rav Ammi and Rav Assi, the Babylonian students of Rav and Shmuel, the same as Rabbi Ammi and Rabbi Assi, the students of Rabbi Yochanan is Israel? At one point, Tosafot to Bava Batra 11b speculate that Rav Ammi and Rabbi Ammi are separate. I’m unconvinced. Regardless, what is the text in our sugya? Are they “Rabbi”, or “Rav”, Ammi and Assi?
In Sefaria’s text of Nedarim 33b, it is certainly “Rabbi”. However, consulting Hachi Garsinan, the Vilna Shas leaves it ambiguous, with R’ which call mean Rabbi or Rav. Thus:
The earlier Venice printing has Rabbi for both. (Technically, they write Rabbi veRabbi Assi, omitting the word Ammi, but that is an error, and in the continuation on the 34a, they write Rabbi Ammi veRabbi Assi.)
The Munich 95 manuscript has the ambiguous R’ Ammi and R’ Assi:
and the Vatican 110-111 has R’ as well.
These are all consistent with how they present the two Sages in the continuation, on 34a.
While I can’t know the precise trajectory of the titles, if it indeed began, orally transmitted, as Rav, then the development could be Rav Ammi —> R’ Ammi —> Rabbi Ammi, first having a contraction and then an expansion. In the first post here, I wrote about minimum edit distance and the simple editing operations (insertion, deletion, substitution, possibly transposition). Here, instead of an insert operation of yud, from RB —> RBY, we have a more complex operation. I’ll pick up on this sort of transforming in a few weeks, when Rav Yehuda (bar Yechezkel) is transformed into Rabbi Yehuda (ben Illai).
By the way, if you want to read my actual Jewish Link column, you can access it visually here or in plain text here.
