Yesterday, we read a dispute in the mishnah between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei about what to do if a debtor makes a partial repayment. Rabbi Yehuda stated that the creditor should tear up the original IOU and write a new one for the amount remaining. Rabbi Yosei insisted that the original IOU stands, and the creditor is required only to give the debtor a receipt for the amount that they have already paid. The mishnah makes it sound like the two have a heated personal debate about the issue, which, as we learned yesterday, is resolved by a third (and much later) party, Rav, coming up with a compromise position.
We get another version of that debate today. A beraita on today’s daf explains:
As it is taught: If 1,000 dinars are owed by him, and he repaid 500 dinars out of it, the witnesses tear the note and write another note for him, from the time of the first. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda.
Rabbi Yosei says: This note shall remain in its place, and they write a receipt.
The beraita presents two opinions in this case, from the same two rabbis in the mishnah. Rabbi Yehuda, once again, thinks that a partial repayment requires a new, replacement IOU to be written. But so that we don’t think that this is a new loan, the IOU is backdated to the date of the initial loan. In contrast, Rabbi Yosei, once again, thinks that the original IOU stands, and a receipt for what has just been paid is given to the borrower so that they can prove at least partial repayment. So far, this debate maps really neatly onto yesterday’s discussion. But the Talmud’s discussion of the beraita is going to offer us some new insights.
The Talmud explains why Rabbi Yosei insists that we keep the original IOU:
And there are two reasons why he said that they write a receipt: One, so that the creditor can coerce him to repay him. And one is so that he, the creditor, should be able to collect property from the first date.
Rabbi Yosei seems to think that having an IOU with the original, larger sum would pressure the borrower to repay their loan more quickly. The medieval commentator Rashbam adds that the borrower might fear that they will lose their receipt and then be taken to court to repay the entire initial sum — added incentive to repay the loan as quickly as possible. (If your paper files are anything like mine, you know this fear is all too real.)
Rabbi Yosei’s second reason is that having the original date of the loan on the IOU will allow the creditor to collect anything that the borrower owned from the initial date if they are not repaid on time. That’s a strange rationale, because Rabbi Yehuda, who thinks we write a new promissory note, also thinks we put the original date of the loan on the new IOU. So this second explanation is not really a point of disagreement between the two rabbis, and doesn’t prove that one position is better reasoned than the other.
The Talmud also recognizes that Rabbi Yosei’s second reason is a bit strange in context.
But doesn’t Rabbi Yehuda also say “from the time of the first”? This is what Rabbi Yosei is saying to Rabbi Yehuda: If you say “from the time of the first,” I disagree with you on one count. If “from the second date,” I disagree with you on two.
Apparently, Rabbi Yosei doesn’t actually know Rabbi Yehuda’s position. And so the Talmud imagines him insisting that he disagrees about writing a new promissory note in general, and reserves the right to disagree again if Rabbi Yehuda also thinks that note should be dated to the date of the partial repayment instead of the date of the original loan.
Rashbam suggests that Rabbi Yehuda was not clear in articulating his full position. The modern commentator Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz thinks that Rabbi Yosei just didn’t hear the second part of Rabbi Yehuda’s statement.
But there is a third possibility: This dispute highlights the ways that many of the Talmudic discussions between rabbis are constructed by later editors or redactors, who compiled and arranged traditions into a rich textual dialogue. Perhaps Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yosei don’t know each other’s positions because they were never actually in oral conversation about this issue. Instead, students preserved their teachings, and generations later, these teachings were juxtaposed into an imagined dialogue between the esteemed sages. That kind of post-facto juxtaposition sometimes requires later rabbinic insight and creativity to understand what each person is saying and how it relates to the other’s statement. After all, it’s no simple task to construct a representation of hundreds of years of discussion, transmission and interpretation.
Read all of Bava Batra 171 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on December 13, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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