The Weekly Daf #21 
Bava Metzia 9-15
Week of 20-26 Tamuz 5754/1-7 July 1994
By Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Dean, Ohr Somayach Institutions            
  
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This issue is dedicated in the memory of Simja de Ades
  
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Finders Keepers -- But Who?

The Rules:
1.  If someone is hired for a specific job, anything he finds during the
    period of his employment belongs to him.  If he is hired, however, to
    work in general for the day whatever he finds belongs to his employer.
2.  Whatever a Jewish servant finds belongs to him.

The Problem:
     A servant is required to do all general work for his master. 
     Why then is he entitled to keep what he finds?

The Resolutions:
  According to Rabbi Yochanan:
    Rule Two applies to a highly skilled servant, such as a jewelry
    craftsman, whose labor is generally of more value to his master than
    that of a lost object he will pick up.  It is therefore the implicit
    will of the master that he be relieved of any resposibility to serve
    him in any way other than practicing his craft.  The servant may
    therefore retain the unusually valuable object he finds and compensate
    his master for the time lost.

  According to The Sage Rava:
    Rule Two applies only to a situation in which the servant is able to
    pick up the lost object without losing any time at the expense of his
    master.

  According to Rabbi Popa:
    Rule Two applies to every situation except one in which the worker has
    been specifically hired to find lost objects for his employer; i.e.,
    the river has overflowed leaving enough fish on the shore to make it
    worthwhile hiring someone to gather them.

Bava Metzia 12b
 
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When Labor Becomes Bondage

A day laborer may quit his job even in the middle of the day (unless such a 
work stoppage causes actual damage to his employer due to his 
indispensability in that particular situation) without suffering any loss 
in the wages due him for the hours in which he worked.

This freedom to quit is based on the Divine warning that "the Children of 
Israel are My servants" and not the servants of servants.  To compel a 
worker to continue working against his will is tantamount to bondage.

This aversion to bondage also finds expression in the law (Shulchan Aruch, 
Choshen Mishpat 373:3) prohibiting a Jew to enter into an agreement to work 
for someone for more than three years, because at that point he changes his 
status from employee to something approaching bondage.
Bava Metzia 10a

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