Payment is not exacted for the eating of fruits, for the enrichment of land, and for the food of one's wife and daughters from bound property, for "the general good." [If one stole a field and sold it to another, and he sowed it and it sprouted and produced fruit, and the despoiled one came and claimed it with its fruit from the buyer (reimbursing him only for his expenses), the buyer returns and claims the price of the field from bound property, it having been sold to him with a guarantee by bill of sale, this being "a loan against a note" (milveh bishtar), and (he claims) the price of the fruit from free, and not from bound property. The same applies when the buyer enriched the land by planting trees or fertilizing it, and the like. ("and for the food of one's wife and daughters":) this being a condition of the kethubah, viz.: "And you shall dwell in my house and be fed through my property; and the daughters that you have by me will dwell in my house and be fed through my property, etc." When they come to claim their food, they do so only from free property, and not from bound property. ("for 'the general good'":) For these are indeterminate things and exact allowances cannot be made for them.] And if one found a lost object [and returned it, and the owner claimed that he did not return all of it], he does not take an oath, for "the general good." [For if an oath were imposed upon him, no one would take pains to return a lost object.]
Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
אין מוציאין לאכילת פירות ולשבח קרקעות – The one who steals a field and sells it to another [person], who sowed it and caused it to grow and made fruits and the person from whom it was stolen comes and collects it with its fruits from the purchaser, does not pay the purchaser other than the expenses [laid out following the purchase] and the purchaser goes back to the seller and collects the cost of the land from his mortgaged possessions, for he [the thief] sold it to him [the purchaser who was unaware that the land had been stolen] with surety and wrote him a document of sale , and it is a loan document, and the fruit come from free-standing property and not from mortgaged property.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Gittin
Introduction
The first section of this mishnah continues the topic of collecting debts from mortgaged properties. The second section deals with returning lost objects.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
לשבח קרקעות – and similarly, if the purchase increased the value of the property by planting trees or manuring it or doing similar things.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Gittin
[Creditors] do not collect from mortgaged property for produce consumed, for the improvement of property, [and payment] for the maintenance of a widow and daughters, because of tikkun olam. There are three types of repayments mentioned in this section. In each of these cases when a creditor collects his debt he can only collect from unmortgaged property, meaning property that is actually in the hands of the debtor. The first category is “produce consumed.” This refers to a situation where someone illegally obtained land, for instance he stole it. He then eats the produce on the land and sells the land to another person. When the original owner comes to claim the land he extracts the land from the person who purchased it from the thief and he can extract the value of the produce from the thief himself. However, he can only exact this payment from the thief from unmortgaged property and not from property which the thief sold or gave away to others. In this same situation, the one who purchased the property from the thief and then had to restore it to its original owner collects from the thief the original purchase price. He also may collect from the thief any money he spent to improve the property, but this amount he may collect only from unmortgaged property. This is what the mishnah means by “improvement of property.” When a man dies one of the ketubah stipulations is that his widow and daughters are to be provided for from his estate until they are married. However, they are only provided for from the dead husband’s unmortgaged property. The “tikkun olam” here is that these amounts are not fixed. Therefore, one who buys from a person who might be in this situation will never know how much debt that person is really in and he won’t be able to be cautious lest he buy property that has a lien on it. To protect these purchasers, these amounts cannot be collected from them.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
ולמזון אשה והבנות – for it is a condition of the Jewish marriage contract, “for you will dwell in my house and be supported from my possessions, and the female issue that you will have from me will dwell in my house and be supported from my possessions, etc., and when they come to claim their food, they do not collect it other than from free-standing property and not from mortgaged [properties].”
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English Explanation of Mishnah Gittin
The finder of a lost article is not required to take an oath, because of tikkun olam. If a person returns a lost object to another person, and the person receiving the lost object suspects that the one returning it has kept part of the object for himself he cannot make the one returning the object take an oath that he has returned it all. If such an oath could be enforced, people might be hesitant to return lost objects, because people did not want to take oaths even if they were true. In order to encourage people to fulfill the mitzvah of returning lost objects, in other words for tikkun olam, such oaths were not enforced.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
מפני תקון העולם – for they are many which have no limit and no one knows how much they are and one is not able to be careful with this.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
והמוצא מציאה – and returned [the lost object], and the owners say that the entirety was not returned.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Gittin
לא ישבע מפני תקון העולם – for if you say that he should take an oath, there are no individuals who deals with the return of lost objects.
