Can you come up with a title?!
Story #1:
You are going out of town and you need someone to
take care of your cow Betsy. You give her over to the neighbor, John,
and ask him to take good care of her. You tell John the feeding times
and to shower Betsy with lots of love. You give John a 100$ for his
services.
Two weeks later you come back home and John tells you, "I have got
some sad news to share with you, Betsy was stolen." Grieved at the
turn of events and the loss of your cow, you tell John, "You were a
paid guardian and you are liable for a stolen object, pay up!" John
concedes and pays you the money.
A week later the police find good old Betsy in the hands of Ivan
the Thief. Unfortunately Betsy is no longer alive, Ivan slaughtered
Betsy :-(, boo hoo. The courts obligate Ivan to pay four times
Betsies' value (as the law mandates for a thief) to John, your
neighbor.
Johns' payment to you for Betsy, has given him the rights to any
future income resulting from Betsy. In this case the income is rather
high. Four times her value. Ouch. Tough Nuggets!
Story #2:
You are downsizing. You are throwing stuff out that you dont
need. You have a bunch of pots and pans that you dont need but dont
want to throw out. You bring them over to the local "Store and Lock
LTD". The storage fee is 40$ a year, you pull out your wallet and pay
two years in advance. Great price.
Its time for the Bar Mitzvah of your eldest son. Mazel Tov! You
decide you are going to self cater. Nothing tastes as good as home
made grub. Now is when those pots and pans will come in handy. You go
over to the "Store and Lock LTD", and much to your chagrin they tell
you there has recently been a robbery and amongst the stolen items are
your pots and pans. In an attempt to placate you they give you back
the full value of a new set of pots and pans, you are elated.
Two weeks later you see in the newspaper that the thief was found,
taken to court and found guilty and penalized with paying "Store and
Lock LTD" double the value of the pots and pans. Aww shucks.
Why to them? Same reason as above. Store and Lock LTDs' payment to you
for the pots and pans, has given them the rights to any future
income resulting from the pots and pans. In this case the income was
double their value.
Not as bad as the cow, but that is a 100% return.
Laws learnt: A paid guard who pays for the stolen object
assumes all future income from the stolen object. The item effectively
comes into the possession of the guardian. In the event the thief is
found, all proceeds go to the paid guard. For anything that was stolen
the guard gets double the value in return, with the exception of an ox
or lamb when slaughtered he gets four or five times the value in
return. Those are the penalties placed on the thief. A regular object
= 2 * value. Slaughtered ox = 4 * value.
When two cases or stories are brought in a Mishna, the Gemoro frequently questions the necessity to bring both cases down.
Here
the Gemoro is teaching that when a paid guard pays for the item
deposited into his watch he assumes ownership over the item and
acquires all future 'income' that will come from that item. This same
idea is illustrated in both stories. In the story of Betsy and in the
story of the Pots and Pans.
So why does the Mishna tell us both stories? Is there anything we would not understand by telling us only one of the stories?
In
order for the guard to assume 'ownership' over the item, it is
necessary for the owner to relinquish his control over it. To pass the
'torch' over to the possession of the guard. The guard can not assume
ownership unless the owner is ready to relinquish his ownership over
the object. Therefore we are in need of both cases. For had we only
brought one of the cases we would have assumes that in the second case
the owner would not be ready to relinquish his ownership over the item.
Stop! Think for a minute. Which case would the owner be less
agreeable to relinquish ownership? Which case would the owner be less
ready to relinquish the possible future income?
Obviously, where the possible future income would be higher! Very good, I am sure you got it. (Anyone not smart enough to get that would have been too bored to get this far down the page, :-))
When the possible future income is low, the owner would rather be
secure in his principal than take a gamble that maybe the thief will be
found. However when the future income is high, than we would have
reason to believe that perhaps over there the owner will rather keep
ownership over the item in the case the thief is caught and he will
than incur profits of 400%.
Had we only brought down the story of the pots and pans we would
have thought, there the owner will gladly relinquish his ownership in
exchange for the items value for he is only foregoing a possible
doubling of his money -- if the thief is found. So he says, better to
be sure in my principal than hope that I will get double back. However
when the stakes are raised, with the ox, and it is possible that he may
get 400% back, maybe than he wont forego and relinquish his ownership.
Therefore the Mishna has to bring down the case of the ox as well. (I
am not going to go into why we need the case of the pots and pans as it
is irrelevent to my point).
Good old Betsy is worth more than a few pots and pans. An ox
probably costs somewhere close to a few thousand dollars (I am taking a
shot in the dark I actually have no idea) and a plate wont get you
anywhere near there. So the gemoro could have just said that because
oxen are worth a lot more so the owner wont want to forego the possible doubling of that significant amount in the case the robber is found out. However the gemoro specifically said that a person might not want to forego the quadrupling or pentupling of the value of the product in the case the robber is caught. The Gemoro focused on the percentage not the value.
What I learn from here is that it is important to deal with
percentages, not with amounts. When you are gaining or losing money
dont focus on the amount, focus on the percentage. When you are saving
money or paying extra for something dont focus on the amount of money,
focus on the percentage of money.
Two incidents to bring out the point.
1) I was looking for a
filing cabinet recently. I found one on gumtree (Craigslist in SA
version) and they were asking 400R, I asked them for 250R, they said
yes right away, seeing that they were anxious to sell I said, "How
about 150R?" So we settled for 200R. I chopped off the price by 200R,
not a large amount. I chopped of the price by 50%, now that is huge!
2) I was making copies of a couple of keys. The guy rings them up
at the counter and says 30R. I replied, "You dont happen to give
discounts on key copies do you?" To which he replied, "I will give it
to you for 27R." I saved 3R, thats nothing, 30 cents, or I saved 10%
now that is huge. If you could take all of your bills and slash them
down by 10% you would be very happy.
Focus on the percentages not the amounts. The amounts will come later.
Thanks for reading until the end, I hope you enjoyed, and can you come up with a title for this article?
