Bava Metzia 22: The Best Fruits, the Worst Figs, and Trampled Bunches of Produce

The rabbis continue to ask questions about found items that have been carried off by water to a neighbouring field.  That property might be salvageable; it might require tithing.  It might be susceptible to ritual impurity, as it has been wet.  The rabbis must know whether it is high-quality produce that has been lost and then found.  Through the use of stories, we learn that the rabbis expect excellent hospitality from their hosts even if they are visiting briefly.  They encourage hosts to offer only the highest quality fruit to their guests (including their rabbis).

Amud (b) considers some of the intricacies of tumah, ritual impurity.  When a seed is exposed to water it is susceptible to ritual impurity, but only if the owner places the water upon the seed.  This is a reminder that the logical thinking that we so admire about rabbinic writing is based upon the specific words of the Torah rather than scientific inquiry.  

When a date falls from a tree, our Mishna suggested that owners will not despair of them, because creatures might eat them immediately, and thus they are ownerless and permitted to anyone who finds them.  But what if the owners are minor orphans?  and what was the presumptive status of the tree?  The rabbis change their minds about access to 'lost' figs in specific cases.

The Gemara then turns to the question of distinguishing marks.  Is a bundle of food automatically carrying a distinguishing mark because it is prone to be trampled?  Rava concludes that this is not the case.  The rabbis disagree.  At the end of today's daf, our rabbis teach that there can be two halachot.  If a bundle of produce with or without a distinguishing mark is found in the city, it is now owned by the person who find it. If the that bundle is found in a secluded area, the person who has found it must proclaim what he has found.