Bava Metzia 69 – בבא מציעא ס״ט | Daf Yomi with Rashi, Tosafot, the Rambam and halacha
What Bava Metzia 69 teaches
- A partner may unilaterally divide identical coins because money is fungible, but cannot divide wine barrels whose quality varies unseen.
- Renting out coins for a daily fee is forbidden usury, but paying a broker to persuade a lender is entirely permitted.
- Increasing rent after loaning funds to improve a field, paint a shop, or add a sail is permitted investment, not interest.
The sugyot
- The Gemara reinterprets an ambiguous partnership contract to avoid interest and clarifies that Rav Nachman merely cataloged a lenient school of thought without adopting it.
- The Gemara examines wage stipulations in agricultural and joint business ventures to prevent interest, established valuation durations, and rules governing unsupervised division among partners.
- Renting out money is forbidden interest because coins are spent, while third-party incentives and brokerage fees are permitted.
- The Mishnah defines when an animal's labor offsets caretaker wages to avoid usury, debating young animals and permitting inflated rent for field improvements.
- The Gemara determines that inflating rent for improvements or charging both rent and breakage is permitted when liability only activates upon destruction.
Halachot from the daf
- Interpreting an iska contract written as half profit and half loss
- Legal validity of lenient individual opinions grouped as a single sheita
- Iska wage when manager has other business or is a sharecropper
- Care periods and division of appraised animals and offspring in iska
- Early division of partnership goods having a designated selling season
- Renting out money for a fee
- Third-party payment to a lender to grant a loan
- Paying a broker or intermediary to arrange a loan
- Increasing rent in exchange for loan invested directly into property
- Appraising cow for post-mortem liability while paying ongoing rental fees
- Renting a ship with both rental payment and damage compensation
Gems from the Daf
Learn Bava Metzia 69 sugya by sugya on Super Daf: the Gemara in Hebrew and English with Rashi, Tosafot, the Rishonim, the Rambam and the Shulchan Arukh woven in. Free.