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Please be sure to see the "save the date" for our next Zoom shiur, this one with Rabbi Shlomo Weissman of the Beth Din of America, at the bottom of this email.
Perek 5 continues with the situation in which, by virtue of a neder, Dan is forbidden to benefit from Sara's property. In Mishna 1 of our perek, Sara and Dan happen to share ownership of a courtyard, which is to say that both of their homes open to the same courtyard which makes them co-owners of the courtyard. The Mishna's "first opinion" understands co-ownership as meaning that each partner co-owns each square inch of the courtyard. This being the case, poor Dan is invariably benefiting from Sara's property the moment he steps food into the courtyard. So he's either got to find another way to get into his house, or find a way to rescind the neder.
By contrast, Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov conceives of co-0wnership of the courtyard in a more legally fluid sense, i.e. that any given square inch is either Sara's or Dan's, but that it is impossible to definitively identify whose square inch is whose. Under normal circumstances this results in Sara and Dan functionally sharing the entire courtyard. But this different understanding of co-ownership gives Dan the ability to step into the courtyard and claim that it is legally possible that the particular square inch he happens to be standing on in that moment is actually one of his square inches, which is enough to allow Dan to enter and walk through the courtyard.
The same dispute between the Mishna's "first opinion" and R. Eliezer ben Yaakov plays out in a similar case in Mishna 2.
Mishna 3 explores the question of Dan benefiting from Sara's possessions in cases when Sara has leased these possessions to others, or has died and has bequeathed them to her heirs.
Mishnayot 4 and 5 return to the courtyard question, i.e. the status of an object that Sara and Dan own jointly. But this time we're not discussing something that Sara and Dan are the only two partners in, rather a piece of communally-owned property in which Sara and Dan are effectively partners together with all of the other members of the community. The Mishnayot distinguish between property that is legally seen as being the joint possession of all of its many partners, and property (like the Temple Mount for example) that is the possession of the corporate entity known as "The People of Israel".
Mishna 6 explores the validity of trying to use a legal fiction in order to circumvent the effect of a neder. Spoiler alert: You're not fooling anybody :).
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SAVE THE DATE!!!!!!
How a Bet Din Can Work to Pre-empt Agunah Situations
A Zoom shiur with Rabbi Shlomo Weissman, Director of the Beth Din of America
March 17th, 5:45 – 6:30 PM
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88446978315?pwd=V2hMamxSR3JHZCsvQXZtNnQvVVU1UT09
Meeting ID: 884 4697 8315 | Passcode: 342646
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