Resources for Kesubos 84
1. The גמרא discusses a case where a person borrowed money from multiple people and then died. In such a case, if one of the lenders is תופס the money, it works and he can keep it. However, if the lender made a שליח to be תופס then the תפיסה is not valid since it negatively impacts the other lenders who will not be able to collect their loans. The גמרא seems to be discussing a case where you explicitly appointed the personas a שליח and for some reason it still doesn’t work because it is חב לאחרים. This seems hard to understand. Why cant you make a שליח to collect a loan for you? Why is it relevant that it negatively impacts others? Interestingly, רש"י in דף י ע"א ד"ה לא קנה says that if you specifically appointed the שליח then it would work and he could be תופס. The issue of חב לאחריני is only when you never specifically made him a שליח. תוספות in ד"ה את תופס as well almost all the ראשונים ask on רש"י that our גמרא says explicitly “א"ל לשלוחיה” in which case we are talking about a case where there was a מינוי שליחות and yet תפיסה doesn’t help because its חב לאחריני. The שיטה מקובצת answers for רש"י that the גמרא doesn’t say that he appointed him as his שליח. Rather, it just says that it was his שליח. What that means is that he was generally his שליח for things but he had never been specifically appointed to do this so it was not considered his official שליח to be תופס. The שיטה has other answers for רש"י as well. Nonetheless, we are still left with the fundamental question that at least according to the other ראשונים even if you specifically appoint a שליח לתפוס it wont work. Why would that be? The פּני יהושע says that there is a מקצת עברה in being תופס. Therefore, the principle of אין שליח לדבר עברה applies and the שליחות wont work. Another possible answer may be as follows: The ריטב"א in גיטין דף י"א ע"ב ד"ה ש"מ brings from his Rebbe almost the inverse of רש"י: the only time תפיסה helps even if it isn’t חב לאחריני is if you specifically made the person a שליח. Otherwise, the borrower’s family can say לאו בעל דברים דידי את. Most ראשונים disagree with this but I believe that concept is the beginning of the answer. The רא"ש in בבא מציעא פּרק א׳ אות כ"ז says that in a case of חב לאחריני making a שליח doesn’t help because the יד שליח is not ממש considered like the יד משלח. It seems the רא"ש understands that that שליחות just means that the action you do can be related back to the person who sent you but it isn’t ממש like you. Therefore, in a case where it is חב לאחריני the other lenders have a right to insist “לאו בעל דברים דיד את!” since his hand isn’t ממש like the hand of the משלח. רש"י may hold that his hand is exactly like the hand of the משלח so חב לאחריני is only an issue if the בעלים didn’t expressly appoint him as a שליח. There is a fascinating נודע ביהודה in מהדו"ק אה"ע סימן ב who says that according to the רא"ש, even though a man is allowed to divorce his wife בעל כרחה, he can’t divorce her בעל כרחה via a שליח since it is חב לאחריני. The נודע ביהודה sounds like he understands that the concept of שליחות simply doesn’t exist if it is חב לאחריני.
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