“You shall not see your brother's ox or his lamb go astray, and hide yourself from them, you shall surely bring them back again to your brother.”

“But if your brother be not near unto you, or you know him not, then you shall take it into your own house, and it shell remain with you until your brother inquires after it. and then you shall restore it to him.  In like manner shall you do with his ass; and in like manner shall you do with every lost thing of your brothers which may have been lost to him and which you have found; you are not at liberty to hide yourself,”

The Torah commands us, that if we find something which belongs to another we must return the property to its owner.  The Mitsvah of Hashavat Avedah is beloved and very special, as it is not always possible to fulfil it.  One has to be very lucky in finding a lost article.

If we live in the city we are not likely to find a straying ox or lamb in the street.  But in the olden days when we Jews lived in the Holy Land and many of us were farmers or shepherds, it was not unusual for an ox or a lamb or an ass to go astray.  Do you remember the story of the lost asses of Kish, Saul's father, and how Saul set out in search for them. which brought him to Shemuel the Prophet who crowned Saul as the first King of the Jewish people?  Little did Saul think that in going out to look for the lost asses he would not only find them but also a crown!

However, the Torah speaks also of 'every lost thing' whatever that may be.  The duty to restore lost property is the same, whether it be an ox or a needle.

In the olden days when the Beth Hamikdash was in existence and the Jewish people made pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the Shalosh Regalim that was the time to make a public announcement about found property. There was a special place in Jerusalem called (Stone of Contenders), where anyone who had lost anything would come and anyone who had found anything would also come. The finder would announce his finding and the loser would come forward and identify it by special marks or signs.  It was a sort of clearing station or “lost and found” office.

In those days there was also a beautiful custom in this connection. The one who lost something would enter the Bet Hamikdash through the gate on the left side (the North Gate) unlike others who entered the gate on the right side (the South Gate) and passing all the people would tell them what he had lost and the people would comfort him with the wish:  “May He Who dwells in the House put it into the heart of the finder to return it to you”.

Turning back to the text of the quotation from the Torah, namely the first sentence “You shall not see your brother’s ox or his lamb go astray and hide yourself from them”. indicates that there are circumstances when one may 'close one's eyes to a lost thing, as for example when an old man sees a heavy thing lost and it is too difficult for him to handle it; he may leave it for others to deal with.  But except in special cases the Torah repeats the words “you are not at liberty to hide yourself”,  This means that normally a person has no right to refuse to pick up a lost thing in order to save himself the trouble and tracing the owner.  If for example he finds a lost lamb, he must take it and put it with his own lambs and feed it and look after it as though it were his own.  If he finds scattered money, or scattered fruit, and the like, where it is clear that the owner, upon discovering his loss- has lost hope of finding it, such property is regarded as Hefker “ownerless” and it becomes the property of the finder.

Sometimes it may be a temptation for the finder to keep the thing found, trying to find excuses for such actions.  But the person to whom a Mitsvah is worth more than money will not be troubled by such temptation.