Excitement was in the air as the twelfth Siyum Hashas of the Daf Yomi cycle approached. Mendy, who had joined the Daf seven and a half years earlier, eagerly anticipated taking part in the major event at MetLife Stadium, along with 90,000 other participants.

Ten days before the Siyum, Mendy was blessed with a baby boy. He didn’t expect that this would affect his attendance at the Siyum, but the baby was yellow and the bris had to be delayed for a few days.

The night before the Siyum, the mohel checked the baby and informed Mendy that the bris could probably take place the following afternoon.

In the morning, at the Daf group, Mendy told his neighbor Ezra, “I bought a $180 ticket to the Siyum tonight, but will not be able to make it. Do you know of anyone who is still looking for a ticket?”

“Rabbi Kurz is looking for an extra ticket,” said Ezra. “He might be happy to buy it from you.”

“If you can sell it for me, I would very much appreciate it,” said Mendy, “It cost $180, but I’ll sell it for $150, or even $120.”

Ezra called Rabbi Kurz. “Someone in our Daf group has a $180 ticket to the Siyum that he won’t be able to use,” he said. “Are you interested?”

“Absolutely!” exclaimed Rabbi Kurz. “If you can bring me the ticket, I’ll pay the $180 immediately.”

Ezra decided not to mention that Mendy had only asked for $150. He put aside $150 for Mendy and kept $30 for himself.

“All’s well that ends well,” thought Ezra with satisfaction. “Rabbi Kurz got his ticket to the Siyum, Mendy recouped the $150 he wanted, and I earned thirty dollars in the process!”

While driving to the Siyum, Ezra told his chavrusa, who learned regularly in a business halacha shiur, what had happened with the ticket.

“You had no right to charge Rabbi Kurz the extra $30,” said his chavrusa. “I think you should return it to him.”

A lively discussion erupted in the car.

“Since you sold the ticket for Mendy, whatever you got for it is his!” said another person. “You have to give him the full $180.”

“I don’t see any problem in what you did,” a third passenger said. “Mendy got his price, and the rest was given to you. You earned it!”

“You and Mendy should split the $30,” a fourth person suggested, “since you both had a share in it.”

They debated the issue for twenty minutes. Finally, Ezra said, “Why don’t we ask Rabbi Dayan at tomorrow’s Daf?”

The following morning, when the Daf shiur finished, Ezra related the story to Rabbi Dayan.

“What should I do with the extra $30?” he asked.

“This question was posed to the Rosh 700 years ago,” Rabbi Dayan replied. “The Rosh (Responsum 105:1), cited in the Tur and Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 185:1), ruled that if the seller stated a certain price and the agent sold the item for more, the additional money belongs to the seller. Thus, you should give the remaining $30 to Mendy.”

“But why?” asked Ezra. “How is this different from any other business, where the middleman buys and sells for a profit?”

“The reason is that you never bought the ticket,” explained Rabbi Dayan. “You were simply Mendy’s agent to sell it. Rabbi Kurz gave you the $180 for the ticket on behalf of Mendy.”

“And why not give the $30 back to Rabbi Kurz?” asked Ezra.

“There was no mistake on his part,” said Rabbi Dayan. “He was aware of the item he was buying and of the price he was paying. You were a diligent agent in getting the full price for the seller.”

“But why shouldn’t I be entitled to the $30 difference as a brokerage fee?” asked Ezra.

“A broker is entitled to a fee if he arranges it so ahead of time, or if that is the standard practice,” said Rabbi Dayan. “Similarly, had Mendy said, ‘Sell it for $150 and keep any extra,’ you would get the difference. Here, however, you simply sold the ticket to Rabbi Kurz on Mendy’s behalf, so the entire sum of $180 goes to him.”

Reuven collected money for his daughter’s wedding and brought approximately $5,000 worth of checks to a gemach (free loan fund) to have them cashed. The administrator told him to return in a week so that the checks could clear, but when Reuven returned, the administrator admitted that he had misplaced the checks. Reuven cannot go back to the donors for replacements, since he does not have a record of who gave him the checks.

Q: Is the gemach administrator obligated to reimburse Reuven for his loss?

A: Shulchan Aruch (C.M. 291:7) states that a custodian who cannot recall where he placed the item in his care was negligent, and therefore is obligated to repay the owner immediately. Accordingly, when the administrator took the checks, he became a custodian and is liable if he misplaced them.

On the other hand, contracts (shtaros) by biblical law are generally excluded from the laws of custodians (C.M. 301:1), but this mitigation might not apply to liabilities due to negligence (pshi’ah). (See conflicting opinions in C.M 301:1, Shach 66:126.) Therefore, the liability of the administrator is subject to the dispute of whether a custodian is liable for misplacing checks due to his negligence.

Another angle to consider is the reason for the liability in misplacing an item beyond the argument of a custodian’s liability for negligence. Nesivos (291:14) contends that the liability of a custodian who misplaces an object in his care is not only due to his duties as a guardian, from which documents might be exempt. Misplacing someone else’s object and thereby causing the owner to no longer have use of it is also an act of mazik (damage). That he was originally a custodian does not change the fact that his action is categorized as an act of damage, rather than as negligence.

Others disagree with this interpretation and define forgetting the location of the pikadon as negligence (Shu”t Rabi Akiva Eiger 3:24), not damage. Only misplacing someone’s object without permission - even for worthy reasons - is an act of damage. In contrast, a custodian who received an object from its owner for safekeeping and misplaced it was negligent, but is not considered a mazik (see Teshuvas Imrei Shefer 24).

In summary, the liability of the administrator is subject to dispute. The custodian may be categorized as a mazik who is liable. Even if he is categorized as a custodian who is exempt from liabilities on shtaros, there are authorities who maintain that he is liable for negligence, and certainly liable beyond the letter of the enforceable law (chayav latzeis yedei Shamayim) for indirectly causing someone a loss (grama) (Imrei Binah, Pesach 5). The combination of these factors makes it appropriate for the administrator to reimburse Reuven for his loss.

Q: I was entrusted with an item. May I hand it over to someone else to watch?

A: A guardian may not hand over an entrusted item to another guardian (see Aruch Hashulchan, C.M. 291:45-46). He is allowed to leave it in the care of his wife and mature children or other household members, since this is expected. However, he may not leave it in the care of his young children or other relatives who are not members of his immediate household (C.M. 291:21).

If the guardian is known not to guard by himself, but to entrust what he receives to subcontractors, this is comparable to handing over to household members and is to be expected (291:22).

If the guardian transferred the entrusted item to someone he was not supposed to give it to, it is considered negligence. He remains liable unless there is evidence that the second guardian watched properly. An oath by the second guardian does not suffice, since the owner can claim that he does not trust him. However, if the owner is accustomed to entrust items to the second person, his oath is acceptable. Similarly, if the original guardian has firsthand knowledge of what happened, he can swear (291:26).