During his visit to the Babylonian community of Sura, the Sage Rami bar Tamri of Pumpedisa did some strange things which aroused the suspicion of the sages there. One of these was the fact the he wore a four-cornered garment which did not have tzitzit fringes on it as required by the Torah.

When he was challenged in regard to this, he announced that what he was wearing was a borrowed garment and cited a ruling of Rabbi Yehuda, head of the Pumpedisa courts, which is mentioned a little later in our mesechta (136a). In regard to the mitzvah of tzitzis the Torah writes "You shall place tzitzit on the four corners of your garment" (Devarim 22:12). Rabbi Yehuda saw in the Torahs stress on "your garment" an indication that if someone wears a four-cornered garment which he has only borrowed from someone else, he is not required to put tzitzit on it.

Rabbi Yehudas ruling, however, does not exempt the borrower indefinitely from putting tzitzit on that garment. Once it is in his possession for thirty days he is required by rabbinic law to put tzitzit on it. The reason for this, explains Tosefot, is that since it is not common for people to lend things to others for longer than thirty days, the impression gained by people seeing the borrower wearing such a garment after this time period is that he is the owner and is ignoring his responsibility.

The Tosefist Rabbeinu Tam draws an interesting halachic conclusion from this. Just as when someone borrows money without stipulating a date for payment, he cannot demand payment before thirty days, so too if one lends someone an object he cannot demand its return before thirty days since this is assumed to be the length of time one is prepared to allow the borrower to use it.

• Chullin 110b

Is the word "kid" used in the Torahs prohibition against cooking meat with milk (Shmot 23:19) a term limited to goats or does it simply mean any young animal?

The mishna informs us that the Torahs prohibition applies to all animals. Elsewhere the Talmud states that the mention of this prohibition in three different places in the Torah was intended to include a ban not only on cooking meat and milk together but also on eating or deriving any benefit from the product of such cooking.

But how do we know that the term "kid" used in each of these passages does not refer specifically to goats whose young are generally called by that name?

The answer is provided by Rabbi Elazar who directs us to two passages in the Torah which do not even discuss any matter of law and are only part of a narrative. One is in Bereishet 38:20 which reports the gift of Yehuda to Tamar of a "kid goal sent with his friend the Adulamite." The other is in Bereishet 27:16 describing the efforts of Rivka to pass off her smooth-skinned son Yaakov to her blind husband Yitzchak as her hairy son Eisav by covering the formers arms with "the skins of kid goats she placed upon his exposed arms and neck."

In both of these passages the term is explicitly coupled with goat, an indication that anywhere else where it appears by itself it refers to any animal.

In his commentary on Chumash, Rashi notes that the term "kid", based on our gemara, means a "soft, young animal" and not necessarily a goat. Although we generally call a young sheep a lamb and a young cow a calf, the term kid can apply to them as well. It should also be added that despite the use of the term "kid", the prohibition covers the meat of older animals as well, just as the milk referred to is not necessarily the milk of the animals own mother.