Avot236

1:
In our previous shiur we noted that the command against 'theft' in the Ten Commandments has been understood by the sages as prohibiting the kidnapping of a human being. We also noted that the command which prohibits the theft of money and goods is found in Leviticus 19:11-13 and reads as follows:

12:
Rashi's comment on this verse links the commands together as one unit:

This requires a little explanation. The Torah [Exodus 22-6-8] stipulates:

Thus we have a situation in which one person does a favour to another and agrees to look after their money or goods but when the depositor claims back his property the person into whose care it was confided claims that it was stolen from him, so he can't return it. If the thief is not discovered the only way that the person doing the favour can exculpate himself from the accusation of having stolen it himself is to swear in court three things: that he looked after the property as best he could, that he has not appropriated [stolen] it and that it is no longer in his possession.

13:
Such matters must have been most common in a more simple society than ours, a society in which there was no detective police force and no organized banking system. The temptation not to return deposited property must have been great in certain circumstances and there was no effective legal way in which the depositor could make good his loss. The best the judges could do was to subject the 'accused' to swearing in God's name that he was innocent. (In what we may suspect was a theologically less sophisticated society swearing an oath in God's name while at the same time perjuring oneself would incur dire punishment at the hands of the God whose name had been taken 'in vain' – falsely.)

14:
The judges whose task it was to adjudicate such matters were in a bind, because when they require a person to swear something on oath they had no way of knowing whether, in case of perjury, they had not 'aided and abetted' the commission of a grave sin. Also, it was highly unlikely that both of the parties to the case would leave the court happy. It now becomes clear what Rabbi Yishma'el means when he says: "He who spares himself the task of sitting in judgement deprives himself of animosity, theft and perjury."

15:
We have before us a series of mishnahs that are all connected with the study of Torah in some way or other. The series began with Mishnah 6 [Avot 227] and will conclude with mishnah 12. Within this series we have seen that it was considered wrong to make some kind of profit from Torah. But the last clause in the teaching of Rabbi Yishma'el in our present mishnah is aimed at all those people who are eager to shine in the reflected light of Torah, and and pleased to push themselves forward with glib responses concerning halakhah. He says, in the most denigrating manner that the rabbi who is eager to lay down the law is foolish, wicked and uncouth – because this should be done with fear and trembling, lest one might be wrong.

The next shiur in this series will be, God willing, on Monday, 27th November.