Returning a lost object only applies to an item that is lost. If a person sees an animal roaming around, it doesn’t automatically mean that it’s lost. It could be that its owner left it there to graze or just to be there temporarily, and the owner is going to come back for it. So this Mishnah will talk about how a person knows what signs to look for in an animal to know that it is actually lost.
The Mishnah says, “If he sees a donkey or a cow grazing by the side of the road, we don’t consider this to be a lost animal. You don’t have to go take it and do Hashavat Avedah, return the item to the owner, because the owner probably—odds are—left it there in order to graze. But if you found a donkey with all of its keilav, its utensils, all of its gear out of place, the saddles off, things all over the place, and the cow is running through the vineyards.” If a cow runs in the vineyards, it’s going to get bruised and hurt by the vines and the thorns. In that case, we say that it’s a clear Avedah (lost object). The finder has to go get these animals and return them to the owner. It’s clear that the owner doesn’t have possession of them or know where they are.
How many times do you have to return an animal? Let’s say a person found a lost animal and returned it to its owner. Then the animal ran away again, the finder found it once more, a second time, and gave it back to the owner, and then it ran away again. Even if the animal ran away four or five times, or continues to run away, and you find it, you’re obligated to return it over and over, over and over again, like the Pasuk (verse) says, “You must surely return them to your brother.” We see from here, by the hashev teshivem (You must surely return them to your brother), the repetitive nature of these two words, that you have to continue to return a lost object to its owner, no matter what. There are no limits. That’s what we learn from here: even if it could be a hundred times, you may say, “You know, it’s not my problem anymore. This owner should keep tabs on his own animal.” Doesn’t matter. You’re right: he should keep tabs on his own. It’s an animal, but it doesn’t exempt you from the mitzvah (commandment) of Hashavat Avedah.
We learned earlier that an owner of an animal whose item got lost would have to compensate the finder for the expenses he had to incur while caring for that item. The same applies to the loss of income that the finder goes through while he’s trying to return the item to the rightful owner. He will talk about how that compensation is calculated.
Let’s say the finder stopped doing his job, and from that job he could have earned a sela. If he avoided taking this object back to the rightful owner, he could have stayed at work and made a sela in profits. So the finder shouldn’t say, “You know what? I took off work. Pay me, compensate me for the full work that I was doing. Pay me for the entire sela that I lost.” Rather, the owner would only give him what it would cost for him to do a simple job, not one that would involve an extremely high amount of labor. In other words, the amount he could have made was a sela, which is, let’s say, four dinarim (coins). That’s what he would have made if he worked a very hard, strenuous job. What we say is that the owner is not obligated to pay him for those four dinarim. Rather, if he lowered his exertion of work and worked an easier job, like returning a lost object to somebody, that’s an easier job that would have been worth two dinarim, half the price. So the owner is obligated to give the finder the price of two dinarim, the cost of performing an easier job, like returning a lost object. That’s true of most people: they’re willing to take less money to work a much simpler job. They don’t want the exertion or the hassle. And that’s why we say that instead of the four he would have made at his normal, tough job, the owner only pays two to the finder, because that’s what he would have been okay with.
But let’s say you have a certain type of person who wants to work hard. He wants to earn more money, and he would only have been willing to return this lost object if he knew he was going to get compensated for the entire sela, for all four dinarim. If there’s a Beit Din, a court, available there, and the finder wants to tell them that instead of returning the lost object and getting less money, he wanted to stay at his own job and earn more, he goes to the Beit Din and tells them that he was willing to return the item to the owner only if he gets the full compensation for what he would have made by working, and that he wants compensation for his entire loss. That would work. If he then went and took the item back to the owner, he’s allowed to demand the full payment that he lost out on.
But if there’s no Beit Din over there of three, no three people Beit Din, who does he make this declaration to? shelo kodem. In this type of situation, since he can’t clarify with the Beit Din and declare to them that he would have continued to work if he had the opportunity to, we say he’s not obligated to go and batel, to nullify his job and stop working, to return this lost object. It would have cost him too much money. So we say his own financial matters come before a different person’s financial matters. He doesn’t have to take off from his job and return the item. Since there’s no Beit Din to discuss this with, he’s allowed to stay working and ignore the lost objects.