Question

A congregant went to see a show a few weeks ago, and her husband lost his AirPods there. He called the venue and left a voicemail describing the lost AirPods, and they said they had them. His brother went and picked them up. The husband got them, and they were the same make and model; however, when he opened them, he saw they were registered to someone else.

It’s not possible to figure out to whom the AirPods are registered, so they went to the Apple Store, where they were told that the employees are not able to look up the owner either, and to take the AirPods to the police.

The event was three weeks ago, with a couple hundred people who came from surrounding areas.

There is a siman (an identifying mark or distinguishing feature) in the sense that they can tell the AirPods belong to someone with a Gmail account that begins with an “A,” but nothing more.

They have the financial means to replace the AirPods if necessary. They are probably right to assume that bringing them to the Philly police would not result in a reunion with the owner, but nor would hanging on to them.

What is their obligation vis-à-vis hashavat aveidah (returning lost objects)?

ANSWER

I love that people are asking such questions!

We can assume that the owner of the AirPods is a non-Jew, in which case, the halakha is that there is no mitzvah of hashavat aveida to a non-Jew. (Bava Kamma 113b, Sanhedrin 76a, Shulchan Arukh HM 266:1, 259:3).

From a moral perspective, of course, we should return it anyway, as R. Shimon ben Shetach responded to those who asked him why he returned an aveida to a non-Jew:

מה אתון סברין שמעון בן שטח ברברין הוה

“Do you think that Shimon ben Shetach was a barbarian?” (Yerushalmi Bava Metzia 3:3)

But that should be assessed on moral grounds, not technical halakhic considerations.

As such, if there is no reasonable way that any effort on their part will mean that the owner will get it back, then I do not see any ethical mandate or value in bringing it to the police, if this indeed belongs to a non-Jew. Given that, it’s up to them to assess whether their returning it to the police is indeed of no real value.

(As an aside: wouldn’t it be better to return it to the theatre? After all, the person who lost it would likely check there, just as the husband did.)

That addresses the case of a non-Jew. However, if we were dealing with a Jew who lost it, and looking at this from a technical halakhic perspective, then we would be looking at a case where there was a siman. The critical issue, however, is whether the owner had already experienced ye’ush (despair of recovering it) at the time the object was taken.

If the owner was definitely mityaeish (i.e., had despaired of recovering it), it would be permitted to keep the object (Shulchan Arukh HM 262:5), based on the principle of זוטו של ים – “Zuto shel yam” (property lost in circumstances akin to being swept away by the sea – at least one way of understanding it, see Mishneh Torah Aveida 6:2)

However, we have to consider whether he was indeed definitely mityaiesh. For example, maybe he was assuming that he could just call the theater and retrieve it. And even though by the time he did, they no longer had it, when you took it from the theatre believing it to be yours, he had not yet been mityaeish. Therefore, you still have a chiyuv hashava (obligation to return the object) even if he is mityaeish later. In such a case, you have to just hold on to it, and not use it, even if there is nothing you can reasonably do to help them get back to their owner (Shulchan Arukh HM 262:3).

Since returning it to the police definitely increases the possibility somewhat (from 0% to 0.01%), then they should be returned to the police (how exactly this fulfills the chiyuv of hashava is a separate discussion).

In summary:

• If the owner was a non-Jew, there is no technical mitzvah of hashavat aveida, nonetheless, it’s morally proper to do so
  • If bringing it to the police will not meaningfully increase the chance of recovery, there is no halachic obligation to do so
• If the owner was a Jew and had already experienced ye’ush before it was taken, the item may be kept.
• If the owner had not yet experienced ye’ush at the time it was taken, the obligation of hashava remains.
• If returning it to the police or theater increases the likelihood of recovery, even slightly, one should do so.