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Why does ganav min haganav (stealing from a thief) exempt the second thief from payment? The Gemara (גמרא)'s position that it's "eino shelo" or "eino bereshuso" opens two fundamentally different understandings: Rashi (רש"י) and the Meirei view geneivah as taking someone's ownership (kinyan), while the Rambam (רמב"ם) defines it as invading someone's space (reshus). This yesod drives major nafka minas in kefel, shtaros, and ba'ah machmas.
This shiur analyzes Bava Kamma 53b, focusing on the fundamental question of what defines the act of geneivah (theft). The Gemara (גמרא) presents a series of arguments regarding ganav min haganav (a thief who steals from another thief): initially suggesting the second thief should pay the first thief because the first thief has kinyan againever (acquisition through theft), then presenting a proof from the case of a shomer (guardian) that one pays the original owner, not intermediate parties, and finally concluding that ganav min haganav is patur (exempt). Rabbi Zweig identifies a critical textual difficulty in the Gemara's flow: the Gemara seems to repeat its conclusion that one doesn't pay the ganav without adding new information. He resolves this by explaining that the Gemara is progressively refining what "eino shelo" (not his) means. The phrase appears as both "eino shelo" and "eino bereshuso" in different sources, which opens two distinct approaches to defining geneivah itself.
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Bava Kamma 53b
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