Does the Torah Differentiate between an Unpaid and a Paid Bailee?

The rabbis learn the law of the borrower from the following verse:

^{שמות כא:יג} וְכִי יִשְׁאַל אִישׁ מֵעִם רֵעֵהוּ וְנִשְׁבַּר אוֹ מֵת בְּעָלָיו אֵין עִמּוֹ שַׁלֵּם יְשַׁלֵּם:

^{Exod 22:13} When a man borrows [an animal] from another and it dies or is injured, its owner not being with it, he must make restitution.

The borrower (#3) has the greatest level of responsibility, making restitution not only if the item was stolen but even if it died a natural death before being returned. As the Mishnah (Shevuot 8:1) summarizes: שומר חנם נשבע על הכל והשואל משלם את הכל—the unpaid bailee can swear and is then exempt from payment in all cases [except negligence]; the borrower is responsible in all cases. The rules of the renter (#4), however, are not spelled out in the Torah and the rabbis deduce them independently. See e.g. b. Shevuot 49b. There the question is also raised whether it would make more sense to speak of three types of bailees rather than four.

In the Mekhilta Neziqin 16 (commenting on verse 11):

זה שומר שכר והעליון שומר חינם

This one [vv. 9–11) is a paid bailee; the one above (in vv. 6-7) is an unpaid bailee.

See also b. Bava Metzia 94b and j. Shevuot 8:5.

  This fits with ibn Ezra’s general principle not to veer from rabbinic tradition in areas of Jewish law. See discussion in, Zev Farber, “Can the Torah Contradict Halacha?” TheTorah.com(2013).

He does this from time to time, juxtaposing his own interpretation and that of the Talmudic rabbis. See e.g. his commentary to Lev 21:4.

This is one possible understanding of Rashbam. Another is that as animals are kept outside, it is easier to steal them, and thus the bailee needs to be more careful. Chattel, however, which are kept inside someone’s house, are difficult to steal, and thus, leaving them in one’s house is not considered negligent behavior.

Rashbam’s standard, that a bailee must guard כשמירת חפציו, the way he guards his or her own property, is not the usual rabbinic standard for judging whether the guarding was sufficient. More often in halakhic literature the standard is that the guarding was done כדרך השומרים, the way bailees generally guard. See my Hebrew Peirush ha-Rashbam al ha-Torah(Jerusalem: Horeb, 2009), 262, n. 96.

The Babylonian Talmud’s first comment (Bava Metziah 33b) on this Mishnah is: “למה ליה למתני בהמה, ולמה ליה למתני כלים—why did the Mishnah have to give two examples, both the guarding of an animal and the guarding of chattels?” The simplest answer, though not the one given in the Talmud, is to make clear that the same laws apply to the guarding of animals and of chattels, as opposed to Rashbam’s distinction.

See e.g. Brevard Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 475: “Later Jewish interpretation introduced exact distinctions between the paid and unpaid bailee, but in the Old Testament the differentiation is simply on the grounds of the object deposited.” Cornelius Houtman, Exodus (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 197: “22:6-8 . . . is about delivering money and valuables into the keeping of a neighbour. . . . 22:9-12 is about entrusting livestock to a neighbour.” William H.C. Propp,Exodus 19–40, Anchor Bible IIA (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 246: “22:6 gives—By its lack of specificity, the law seems to cover items entrusted to a guardian who might or might not be paid… objects—Kēlîm can be anything from vessels to musical instruments to weapons to food.” Propp,Exodus 19–40, 250: “22:9 to keep—As in the previous law concerning deposits, the Jewish commentators assume that this is a paid arrangement, since cattle-keeping involves considerable labor.”

Aside from being the author of a Torah commentary, Rashbam is probably more well-known by traditional Jews as a contributor to the Tosafot commentary on the Talmud, where he tends to give more traditional interpretations. In a section there dealing with these laws, Rashbam is quoted as saying something similar to what Ramban later wrote, that the rabbis of the Talmud felt that “מסברא ידעינן—we know from logic” that the first section about chattels is describing a unpaid bailee and the second about animals is describing a paid bailee. So clearly Rashbam was aware that the two explanations could be harmonized. But in his Torah commentary, Rashbam chose not to do so, presenting the two explanations as alternatives, not as complementary. It is likely that Ramban knew Rashbam’s position as reported in the Tosafot (Tosafot Bava Metzia 41b, s.v. קרנא), but never saw Rashbam’s Torah commentary. Other commentators who read this way are Hizzequni and Seforno (to v. 9). It may also be hinted at in ibn Ezra’s shorter commentary to verse 9: והזכיר עם שומר חנם כסף או כלים בעבור שאין טורח בשמירתם—in the section about the unpaid bailee, the Torah mentions “money or goods,” since no effort is required to watch them [and accordingly the bailee is most likely unpaid].

“המפקיד אצל חבירו בהמה או כלים ונגנבו—if a person gives a bailee animals or chattel to guard and they are stolen,” assumes that neither the bailee watching the chattels nor the bailee watching the animal is being paid. The Mishnah explains that such unpaid bailees are not responsible in a case of theft, whether they were watching animals or chattels. The Mishnah’s choice of language “animals or chattel” is almost certainly not coincidental; it is saying that that which the reader might have believed to be the peshat of the verse must be discarded.

See my, “Peshat vs. Halakha Dilemma: Shadal and Tradition,” TheTorah.com (2016). On Rashbam, see note 11 in that essay and the sources cited there.

Editor’s note: For more on Mendelssohn’s Beur, see Abigail Gilman, “Moses Mendelssohn’s Beur: Translating the Torah in the Age of Enlightenment,” TheTorah.com (2017).

והנה אף אנו בצל כנפי הנשר הגדול הזה נחסה, ולא נזוז מפשוטי המקראות ימין ושמאל, אבל לא שכחנו את הכלל הכלול לנו בהקדמת הספר על דבר ההבדל שיש בין הסותר והמתחלף, והוא שפשוטו של מקרא אפשר שיהיה מתחלף לקבלת רבותינו באופן הבאור, אבל אי אפשר שיהיה סותר להם בהלכות ודינין, כי הדברים המתחלפים אינו מן הנמנע שיהיו שניהם אמת, אבל הדברים הסותרים אם האחד אמת השני שקר בהכרח, ולכן בכל מקום שהנראה מגלויו של פשטות המקרא סותר לקבלת רז”ל בהלכות ודינין, חובה על המבאר לעזוב את דרך הפשט מכל וכל ולילך באורח הקבלה האמיתית, או לעשות פשרה ביניהם אם תצלח. ואנחנו את הברית הזה כרתנו לבאורנו ואותו נשמור כיד ה’ הטובה עלינו.

We shall also take shade under the wings of this great eagle [Rashbam], and we will not veer to the right or left from offering peshat readings of verses. But we have not forgotten the general principle which we wrote about in the introduction to our commentary about the difference between “contradiction” and “alternative,” which is that we can explain the peshatof a verse in a way that differs from what the rabbis taught, but it is impossible that our interpretations contradict them in halakhot and laws. This is because alternative readings can both be true, but when things contradict, if one is true then the other is false by necessity. Therefore, any place where exposing the peshat of a verse would contradict rabbinic tradition about halakhot and laws, it is obligatory upon the commentator to abandon the way of peshat entirely and follow the path of true tradition, or to make some sort of compromise reading if possible. We have made this covenant concerning our commentary and we will keep to it, as the good hand of God upon us allows.

In this case, Mendelssohn adopted Ramban’s reading (Exod 22:7) and doesn’t mention Rashbam’s at all.

His best-known contributions to Jewish scholarship were halakhic, in his role as one of the Tosafists, and there he generally took conservative stands.

In my count, Rashbam offers explanations that contradict accepted halakhah 21 times in his Torah commentary. See the index of my Hebrew edition of Rashbam, pp. 532-533.