|
|
|
Welcome to Fellow Weekly!
Encouraging intelligent and entertaining debate at your Shabbat table.
Fellow Weekly raises issues of business law and ethics through lively emails by featuring your real-life scenarios answered by our leading authorities and professionals. |
Fellow-Yesharim continues to develop numerous educational material!
For Sponsorship and Unique Dedication opportunities please send an email to
weekly@projectfellow.org *
Tax - Deductible Donations may be made payable to Minyan Avreichim
6902 Dorset Place, Baltimore, M.D. 21215
To join
this mailing list, please click here
or
send an email to weekly@projectfellow.org with the word subscribe in the subject line. |
|
CASE 156: Visiting Day
Nine-year-old Benny Miller hung his homemade calendar over
his rickety bunk bed. As he laid his weary head down to rest each night, Benny placed
a sticker on another exciting day gone by. Though enjoying every minute of his camp
experience, Benny launched a countdown to July 11.
On that fateful Sunday morning, Mrs. Miller would make that
grueling bumper-to-bumper journey en route from Scranton PA
to the Catskills. She'd appear at the camp gate wiping the sweat off her brow, smiling
from ear to ear, and giving little Benny a big warm embrace. Mom's hugs and
words of encouragement nourished Benny with the courage and self-confidence he
needed to succeed. Benny's sparkling blue eyes and responsive beam made Mom's
arduous trip worth all of the effort!
Mrs. Miller arrived on the campgrounds early Sunday morning and
the two were soon off to spend quality time at a popular shady lookout on Briscoe Rd.
overlooking Swan Lake. While the green and brown leaves
rustled in the soothing breeze, Benny and Mom tried to avoid eye contact with
the untold number of "camp refugees" that arrived from the various area camps to
spend some precious private time with their respective visitors about the lake.
As the sun began to dip towards the horizon and the lookout
was all but empty, Mrs. Miller and Benny made their way from the lakeside to
their white Toyota Prius. Suddenly, Mrs. Miller stopped. "What's the matter
Mom?" asked Benny. "Look at this I see on my left. Someone forgot his or her
care-package."
Mrs. Miller bent down, opened the tan bag and found five
disposable cameras, one amber pair of Swedish goggles, a new pair of grey
imitation crocks, a thirty dollar prepaid calling card, a dairy crumb cake, and a note on the back of a photo, which read,
"Dear Dani, Sorry we could not make it this year. Turn this
note over and smile back at your new baby sister. She will be
waiting for you back home.
Love Mom and Dad."
- "What should I do?" wondered Mrs. Miller out loud.
"If I leave the
package here, it may get stolen or tossed in the trash. While if I bring the care-package back with me
to our small close-knit Scranton community and attempt to locate the owner from home, Dani will probably need to swim with his eyes closed and wait till he returns home to get acquainted with his new baby sister?"
What is the law? Please email us with your comments and answers at weekly@projectfellow.org.
Read next week's issue for the answer!
|
|
LAST WEEK'S CASE
CASE 155: Welcome to Shortsighted
"Welcome to Shortsighted. We offer scheduled bus service to New York City
from Upstate New York with special service to and from Woodbury Common Premium
Outlets®, Northern New Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania,
along with exciting tours and professional charter service. In addition, our
friendly customer service department offers you the peace of mind for which every
traveler yearns.
Forgot a Torah Scroll on the bus? Sit back and leave the anxiety to us. Leave your worries behind. Shortsighted will
make every effort to locate the owner. We go so far as to post photos in the news of
the items we find and wait for the rightful owner to step forward. We are
certain that only the finest most acutely aware citizens ride Shortsighted. So
you won't go through too much hassle in retrieving your item, or contending
with other claimants, our Lost and Found policies are based on an upstanding honor
system. First come first serve. Provide us with one identifying feature and
reunite with your belongings... or maybe not..."
1. How should Shortsighted publicize their finds?
2. What measure of proof must the claimant provide in order to retrieve his
or her belongings?
3. If two claimants step forward and provide identifying features, how
should Shortsighted react?
What is the law?
|
|
The Answer
[See Application].
|
Detailed Explanation
Shortsighted implicates the following six laws.
1.Hashavat Aveidah requires the finder to see to it
that the article reunites with its rightful owner, to the best of his or
her ability. This includes publicizing the find in a manner through which
it is reasonably possible for the prospective loser to notice the posting.
Examples
are local public billboards, synagogues, local circulars and media venues [Choshen Mishpat 267: 3].
2. The finder should continue to publicize the find until
he or she can be reasonably sure that the loser would have seen the posting [Choshen
Mishpat 267: 3].
3. The finder need not incur a financial loss in the
effort to return the article. Nevertheless, one who is perpetually stingy about
helping others will become cruel and eventually become needy whereby having to
come on to others [Choshen
Mishpat 267: 1].
4. The finder publicizes the name of the item
without disclosing any significant identifying features through which the
claimant could use to recover his or her article [Choshen Mishpat 267: 4]. As it is common that multiple individuals lose
similar items, the finder must demand from the claimant identifying
features to ensure that the loser receives the article he or she lost and
not someone else's article inadvertently.
Not
all identifying features provide sufficient proof of ownership. Modern mass
production compounds this issue. Standard,
common features like color and sizes are insufficient proof of ownership. For
instance, there are millions of "grey crocks size small, blue Parker pens and
size 16 white men's shirts".
In
order to prove ownership, second to providing witnesses, the claimant must
produce unique identifying features. Examples of such, are unique
scratches or holes in a particular area, markings, nametags, non-standard
metrics and quantity. In a Torah scroll, one could identify the unique styling
of particular letters, pattern of the shadings on the outside of the hide etc. [Choshen Mishpat 267: 5, 7]. When two claimants produce proof of ownership, the
finder awards the one who produces two witnesses. Succeeding two witnesses
is the one who produces the most telling unique feature [Choshen Mishpat
267: 9- 14].
♦
Application:
Shortsighted could publicize their
find in local newspapers, news sites, in local synagogues and meeting places. [They
could post it on HashavasAveidah.com as well.] Shortsighted should continue to
post their find for a reasonable duration of time. Shortsighted may return it
to a claimant who produces unique identifying features. As there are many
medium size Torah scrolls with a blue velvet cover, a claimant could not retrieve
the item by disclosing that, "It was a medium size scroll with a blue cover." A
unique definitive identifying feature is required. Consequently, posting a photo of the scroll in a blue cover would not be problematic provided that the inscriptions and names remained indiscernible in the photo.
Shortsighted returns the
Scroll to the claimant who produces the most telling identifying feature. Shortsighted
may request the loser to pay for expenditures they may have incurred to affect
the return.
[Answered by the Fellow -Yesharim Research Center] |
|
|
|
Enjoy featured articles, educational materials, and back issues on
|
|
Note:
Although we aim to present the correct ruling, varying details are always important and decisively influence every individual case. Our readers are thus encouraged to present their personal cases to a competent authority and not solely rely on the information provided.
Together...for a better world
You can help build a better world. Just invite your friends and family to subscribe to
Fellow Weekly.
To join this mailing list, please click here
or send an email to weekly@projectfellow.org with the word subscribe in the subject line. | |
A project of
Fellow-Yesharim
105/21 Sanhedria Murchevet, Jerusalem
ISRAEL 02-581-6337
USA 845-335-5516 |
|
|
|
|
|
