This week’s Torah portion of Ki Teitzei speaks about the laws of returning lost objects. The devastating flooding in Houston and eastern Texas due to the heavy rains of Hurricane Harvey made me think of the piece of Talmud that talks about lost objects during a flood.
First an important note: The Talmud Bava Metziah is discussing the legal rights of lost and found objects, not the nice thing to do. Obviously, should one choose to return an object that he/she is allowed to keep by law, they certainly can do so and that’s a Mentsch. But the Talmud law is discussing legal obligation, not human decency.
There’s a seeming contradiction in the wording of some Talmud texts, case precedents that the Talmud is juxtaposing. One text seems to imply that anything and everything swept away by flood waters is fair play and finders keepers, because the owners give up hope of ever finding it (intact) again. Yet, another look at the wording seems to imply that it depends whether the original owners are making some effort at retrieving it or not.
So, the Talmud, after careful examination of the wording of the cases, explains that there’s a difference between an impossible save and a challenging save. In the case of an impossible save, for example a tidal wave that comes crashing through, the owners actions make no difference and its finders keepers. But in a case of a slow moving flood where the owner can mount an effort to try and retrieve it, then the owners actions make a difference. If the owner shows some effort, it remains theirs, even if it escapes their reach.
This can be a poignant lesson for Jewish life at college, be it UAlbany or elsewhere.
The verse says “The many waters can’t extinguish the love (for G-d), and rivers will not push it away”. But peer pressure and certain exposure can act as a flood, sweeping and dragging away aspects of our Judaism and Jewish identity. So know this Talmud rule. This isn’t a tidal wave. It’s possible to act. And as long as you act, as long as you put in effort, that Judaism is still your own, even if this or that may slip away temporarily beyond your reach. But you can’t let it just float away, you have to give it a shot, you have to demonstrate effort and interest to keep it as your own.