Lately I have been studying the topic of hashavas aveidah in depth. I dealt with many questions, such as: What is the din when you find an object with no sign of ownership? Does it matter what type of object? How much effort are you obligated to expend to seek out the owner? When you delve into this inyan, you see how much there is to learn and to do. In order to be mezakeh the rabbim, I also started to disseminate a pamphlet in my area which discussed one aspect of hilchos hashavas aveidah each time.
Last week my family and I went to a certain yishuv for Shabbos. We are part of a Yerushalmi community in which the bachurim wear shtreimlach on Shabbos, and when we went to shul in the yishuv, I saw my son wearing his regular hat rather than his shtreimel. “What happened?” I asked him, “Where is your shtreimel?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, confused. “I can’t find it.”
We searched for it inside and around all the suitcases, but the shtreimel was nowhere to be found.
The next afternoon before Minchah, they asked me to give a shiur in shul to the mispallelim. I thought to myself, What could I speak about? I’ll speak about the topic I have been learning lately: hashavas aveidah.
I gave a shiur and was happy to note that the people were interested and were asking questions, and I saw again how important it is to talk about hashavas aveidah.
We went home after Shabbos without my son’s shtreimel, and I thought about what to do. I called over my son and began questioning him. “Where did you last see the shtreimel?”
He strained himself to remember and said, “At home, before we left on Erev Shabbos.”
His answer was no help at all, because the shtreimel was not in the house. Perhaps someone else in the family had put the shtreimel onto the minibus we took, or it was left in the bus stop at the yishuv. There was also the possibility that it was left on the van. With all these possibilities and more crowding my mind, I had no idea where to begin searching. Anyone I spoke to thought for a moment and then said, “No, I didn’t see any shtreimel.”
Suddenly, I thought: It’s been fifteen years that I’ve been giving shiurim, baruch Hashem, and just this week I gave a shiur on the topic of hashavas aveidah. I said, “Ribbono shel Olam, in the
