A little gosling is all alone in a field, hopping mad. Perhaps it is cheeping at every stranger who passes, “Are you my mother?” But according to the Talmud, each stranger is asking, “Are you my gosling?” In Bavli Bava Batra 23b, the Mishnah states that if a gosling is found within fifty cubits of a dovecote, it is presumed to belong to that owner. Outside of the fifty-cubit radius, it is a case of finders keepers.
Still, the Talmud is exceedingly concerned with the mitzvah of returning lost property, השבת אבידה, which is also a concern of our portion at Exodus 23:4: “When you see your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him.” But how to determine whose property the animal is? Our Mishnah makes it seem straightforward, but then continues to complicate matters, demanding an environmental scan to see who else could be a likely owner.
In the Gemara, Rabbi Hanina states that two biblical principles are at play—preponderance (rov) and proximity (karov). If I find a gosling, I must ask who owns the most birds in the area, and also, whose birdhouse is closest. Between the two considerations, Rabbi Hanina claims that preponderance has priority. So, the gosling might be 25 feet from A’s birdhouse, but if B owns twice as many birds, even if they live a little further, then our unclaimed gosling is likely to belong to B.
From where do the biblical principles of rov and karov derive? For the second principle, karov, the rabbis recalled the case of an unsolved murder in an isolated ravine—responsibility is assigned to the closest town, even if a larger town in also nearby (Deut. 21:3). For the principle of rov, the sages didn’t need to search so far. Just two verses earlier we read the following: “You shall neither side with the mighty to do wrong—you shall not give perverse testimony so as to pervert it in favor of the might.” (JPS) This verse would seem to have nothing to do with lost property or the preponderance of birds in competing henhouses. The plain meaning of the verse is that of the Aramaic Onkeles translation—do not refrain from teaching/ruling according to what is correct in your eyes, and do not show deference to the mighty. Continue reading