When someone gifts their “movable property” questions might arise about which items are included. The Gemara today notes that the precise phrasing of the gift can also affect the meaning:
It is obvious that if one said: “I give my movable property (metaltalai) to So-and-so,” — then that person acquires all of his utensils, excluding his wheat and barley.
If one said: “I give all my movable property to So-and-so,” — then that person acquires even the wheat and barley, and he acquires even the upper millstone; everything except for the lower millstone (which is never moved).
If he said: “I give everything that can be moved to So-and-so,” — that person acquires even the lower millstone.
Three slightly different verbal expressions translate to three very different gifts. If someone said they’re giving their movable property to another without specifying “all” or particular items, we assume a colloquial understanding: They’re bequeathing all movable utensils and items except their harvested produce, since even though their grain stores are technically movable, wheat and barley are not usually referred to as metaltalin. However, if the gifter explicitly said they are giving all their movable property, the category is widened to include items not generally classified as metaltalin, including produce as well an the upper millstone, which was infrequently but occasionally moved. In contrast, the lower millstone was fixed to the floor and almost never moved. But even this could be uninstalled and given as movable property, if the person gifting adds even more specificity and states that everything that can be moved is granted.
Now the Gemara asks about a boundary case, investigated throughout the Gemara: Are slaves included in a gift of one’s moveable property?
A dilemma was raised before the sages: Is the legal status of a slave like that of land, or is his status like that of movable property?
In several areas of law — inheritance, oaths and means of acquisition — slaves are treated the same as landed property. But perhaps not when it comes to the matter of gifting. The Gemara brings a text to help answer this question.
Rav Aha, son of Rav Avya, said to Rav Ashi: Come and hear a proof from a mishnah: A landowner who sells the city has sold with it the houses and the ditches and caves and the bathhouses and the olive presses and the irrigated fields, but not the movable property. But when the seller said to the buyer: “I am selling it and everything that is in it,” — then even if there were animals or slaves in the city, they are all sold.
Rav Aha, son of Rav Avya, suggests the above mishnah proves that slaves fall under the category of movable property. After all, if they were legally equivalent to land, then they would have been included in a sale of the city’s landed property. However, Rav Ashi points out a flaw in this argument:
Is their status like that of movable property? If so, what is the reason that the mishnah says “even” the slaves are sold? Rather, what have you to say? Movable property that moves by itself is different from movable property that does not move by itself. And even if you say that the legal status of a slave is like that of land, land that moves is different from land that does not move.
Rav Ashi points out that if a slave is treated as movable property, the mishnah would have no reason in the second clause to clarify that even slaves (and animals) are sold along with all the movable property. Rav Ashi explains that even if slaves and animals do broadly fall under the category of movable property, because they move of their own accord, they are not treated identically. The mishnah clarifies that in this case — the sale of an entire city — they are. Alternately, though, we could say that slaves are in many respects treated legally like land, but nonetheless, since they are able to move in a way that actual land is not, there are cases where that status differs. Ultimately, Rav Ashi’s retort is that nothing can be definitively proven from this mishnah.
Rav Ashi’s answer highlights the legal problems of trying to classify slaves as property. While the rabbis don’t generally share our moral abhorrence for slavery, they’re still forced to confront the ways that slaves do not neatly fit with other kinds of property; the combination of independent movement and independent consciousness makes them a sui generis example.
Read all of Bava Batra 150 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on November 22, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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