Alex took $50 to school to buy himself a basketball on the way home. In the afternoon, he checked his pocket for the money, but it was empty! “The $50 must have fallen out!” he exclaimed. Alex immediately asked some friends to help him search and retraced his steps. He checked around the room where he just learned, the previous classrooms, the lunchroom, and his morning shiur room, to no avail.

After asking around, Alex heard that Boruch had found a $50 bill in the lunchroom shortly before lunch.

Alex asked Boruch about the bill. “Yes, I found $50 earlier,” Boruch replied. “I used most of it to buy lunch and a sefer.”

“Why did you use the money?” asked Alex. “You should have announced it and done hashavas aveidah!”

“I was told that a single bill lying around is considered something that has no siman (identifying feature) and can be taken,” replied Boruch. “The owner has no way of proving that the bill is his, so he abandons hope (yei’ush) of recovering it.”

“How can you say that I abandoned hope?” said Alex. “As soon as I realized that the money was missing, I began looking for it. I even asked my friends to help me search. No one else in the school is looking for missing money, and I was in the lunchroom just before — so it’s almost certainly mine!”

“I was told that I could keep the money,” said Boruch, “but I’m happy to ask Rabbi Dayan. If he says to return it, I’ll certainly do so!”

“OK, we’ll go together,” said Alex.

After Maariv, the two approached Rabbi Dayan. Alex explained the situation and asked, “Does Boruch have to return the $50 to me?”

“In general, a person who finds a loose bill can keep it,” answered Rabbi Dayan. “However, in this case, there is strong basis that Boruch must return the money. He certainly should do so lifnim mishuras hadin (beyond the letter of the law).”

“Can you please explain?” asked Boruch.

“The Tzemach Tzedek (#89) addresses the case of someone who lost his wallet in a market primarily attended by gentiles,” replied Rabbi Dayan. “Immediately upon realizing, the owner began searching and inquiring after the wallet, which had been found by another Jew. Tzemach Tzedek ruled that the finder does not have to return the wallet, since we presume yei’ush (abandonment). The owner’s search after the item is considered futile, like someone who protests about his ship that already sank” (see B.M. 24b; C.M. 259:7).

“Terumas Hakeri (259:3), brother of the Ketzos, disagrees,” continued Rabbi Dayan. “He maintains that only when the item is helplessly swept away, e.g., by a river, do we disregard the owner’s claims that he did not abandon hope. However, other situations depend on whether, in fact, the owner abandoned hope or made efforts to search.”

“Maybe a school is different from a market frequented by gentiles?” asked Alex.

“In a market primarily attended by gentiles the likelihood of recovering the money is very low,” replied Rabbi Dayan. “However, where the money was lost in a Jewish school there is a realistic chance of recovering it. Thus, the Tzemach Tzedek might agree that if the owner searched immediately, we cannot disregard it.

“Similarly, Rema (259:7) writes that if a river swept away items that have no siman, but there are dams that will trap them,” added Rabbi Dayan, “if the owner immediately chases after them, we need to return them. Rashba implies that the reason is that this shows that he did not abandon hope; Tosafos (B.M. 22a s.v. shataf) explain that the fact that only he chased after the items indicates that they are his.”

“Why did you say that lifnim mishuras hadin the $50 should certainly be returned?” asked Boruch.

“Even after yei’ush one should still return a found item lifnim mishuras hadin,” concluded Rabbi Dayan. “Shulchan Aruch Harav (Hilchos Metzia #18) applies this also to an item that does not have a siman, if it becomes clear who the owner is (C.M. 259:5, 7; Pischei Teshuvah 259:2).”