What Counts as Money and Vessels in the Law of Safekeeping

Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 346:2

"When a man gives to his fellow money or vessels" (Exodus 22:6) - "when a man gives to his fellow" is a generalization; "money or vessels" is a specification; "and it is stolen from the man's house" is again a generalization. With a generalization, a specification, and a generalization, you may judge only according to the character of the specification: just as the specification is explicit in being something movable and whose body is itself property, so too everything that is movable and whose body is itself property. Excluded are tracts of land, which are not movable. Excluded are slaves, who are compared to land. Excluded are deeds, whose body is not itself property. As for consecrated property - the verse says "his fellow," and not what belongs to the Sanctuary.

Themes