Hello Everyone,
Last week we concluded the first section of the Gemarah’s analysis of our Mishnah. The Gemarah, based on its careful reading of the Mishnah, concluded that the Mishnah presents two cases of people arguing over the ownership of an object. One case is two people arguing that each one found a lost (ownerless) objects. The second case is two people arguing over was the first to pay an object that put up for sale.
Today we will see the second section of the Gemarah’s analysis of the Mishnah. Our Mishnah is anonymous. The Mishnah does attribute its law to a particular Tannah. These anonymous Mishnayot are known as סתם משניות. These Mishnayot are understood to present a sort of consensus of the community of scholars called רבנן. The Gemarah precedes to determine which scholars do not agree with the ruling of the Mishnah. Today we will see this process of exclusion.