Are Finders Keepers? Friendship and Enmity in the Rabbinic Law of Finders

This article offers a social and political reading of the ancient rabbinic law of finders. What are the effects of the law of finders on the ideals of friendship and solidarity? Early rabbinic explicit interpretations of the biblical law point to returning lost property as an ethical obligation empowering friendship and reducing enmity in society. However, a major change in this approach begins to take place in the tannaitic texts where this simple obligation is replaced with questions arising from practical impediments to returning lost property. These texts also allow for certain cases in which the finder can become the new owner of the found object. The heart of the problem lies in the view that ownership dissolves when the loser is presumed to despair of retrieving his lost item. It is astonishing to discern later Talmudic developments of the concept of despair (ye’ush ‏יאוש‎) leading to conclusions clearly contrasting with the social ideal of friendship ascribed to the law of finders by early rabbinic exegesis. In extreme cases—and contrary to the view of Roman jurists—some rabbis preferred the interest of the finder over that of the loser even when the lost item could be restored. Such rulings, this article argues, produce enmity instead of friendship, and they are criticized from a point of view internal to the rabbinic tradition itself. This critique, taken from a sociopolitical perspective, must be available for readers of rabbinic law.