Bava Metzia 19: Finding Gets, Bills of Manumission, Wills, Promissory Notes and Treading Carefully

If a person finds a document in the marketplace, must it be returned to its owner?  And which owner, the person receiving or the person selling?

Today's daf focuses on specific documents that might be lost and then found.  These include a get, b a bill of manumission, and a will.  The rabbis compare these documents to found promissory notes.  They also consider gifts and notes written when a person is healthy or unhealthy.

Our Gemara asks questions that refer to the halacha of that time; however, their questions continue to be relevant when considering the legal and ethical questions that would face us today if discovering a lost contract:

• are there any marks on the document that could be distinguished by people who are not Torah scholars?
• has the husband admitted to writing and giving the get to his wife?
• was the get written in Nisan in advance of a divorce in Tishrei? 
• in the intervening time, did the husband sell the produce of his wife's property?
• did the wife have other proof of the time when she was given her get?
• has the master admitted to having freed one of his slaves?
• is freedom in the slave's best interests?  
• are all witness signatures on the document?
• is freedom not in a slave's best interest, for example, is the slave elderly and in need of the master's provisions - especially if the master is a Kohen and offers access to teruma?
• deyaytiki is a will or a deed of gift given by one on his/her deathbed acquired after the death
• when two deeds are produced in court after one's death, the later recipient acquires the property
• people change their minds and can retract their gifts
• sometimes it is not enough for both parties to agree about document: if one party has died and his son must authorize the return of a will
• sometimes proof of documents can be achieved through writing new documents
• a get should not be returned to the wife nor the husband if the wife does not admit that it was paid

What we learn today is that the rabbis thought of countless ways that people might attempt to take advantage of each other.  When finding a document, one would have to think very carefully before deciding to return it.  It would have been more uplifting to read that the rabbis were convinced that those who found lost documents would return them and be greeted by a simple "thank you".  Instead, we learn that the rabbis are creating strong fences to discourage transgression of halacha.