[Avodah] Are there limits on what must be returned

[Gershon Dubin]

From: Zev Sero <zev at sero.name>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 13:26:19 -0400
> There's nothing new about this.   Given the premise that these phones are
> assur to have, then it follows that one not only needn't return them but one
> *may* not do so.

My unsaid question was a request for sources that certain items or classes
of items are exempt from hashavas aveida. That is not at all simple.

[Email #2. -micha]

From: "Kenneth Miller" <kennethgmiller at juno.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:44:19 GMT
> It sounds reasonable to me, that if a Jew lost an object, and the only
> or main function of that object was to do aveiros, then returning that
> object would be a violation of Michshol.

> Let's take a simpler example: I find a container of food, clearly marked
> with the name of the non-kosher restaurant that it came from... If

> My first inclination is to say that this is Michshol, because there's
> no possible way for him to eat THIS food unless I return it. Or perhaps
> one can say that it is only Mesayaya, because even without this food,
> he'll eat other treif instead...

With a little imagination one could come up with a variation on your
scenario that would explain my owning the treif food. Is your chiyuv
of hashavas aveida dependent on your degree of imagination?

What about if you found my container of cholov hacompanies? shatnes? A
hechsher you consider unreliable? Vegetables that, in your opinion,
cannot be cleaned from bugs?

The only thing I can imagine being subject to this kind of judgment on
the part of the finder is something that is assur behana'ah, and that
only due to precedents in the Gemara.

To quote one of our less reputable ancestors, mi samecha le'ish sar
veshofeit alenu? And to quote myself, sources please?

Gershon
gershon.dubin at juno.com