Bava Kama 107-113
Audacity and Oaths
“A person does not have the chutzpa and audacity to lie to someone who did him a favor by lending him money.”
The Sage Rabbah said this reason to explaining why a person who admits to owing only part (modeh b’miktzat) of the amount claimed by the lender must take an oath that he does not owe the remainder. This oath is required by Torah law. Rabbah explains why there is an oath when the borrower admits to part of the claim:
“The borrower would like to deny the entire amount of the claim, even if this is not true, but does not have the audacity to do so. Therefore, he would like to admit that he owes the full amount claimed by the lender, if in fact he does owe it, but he is hesitant to admit to the full amount since he may not be able to pay it on time. So, perhaps he is admitting only to the amount he can pay now and is thinking to himself that, when he gets the rest of the money to pay the loan, he will indeed pay the balance in full. For this reason, the Torah imposes an oath upon him to find out what the truth really is.”
This reasoning applies only if a person admits to part of the claim for repayment of a loan. But, if the person denies the entire claim (kofer hakol), he is exempt from this Torah oath. The type of person who stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah would not have had the audacity to lie in denying the entire amount claimed by the kind lender. Therefore, if he actually denied the entire claim, we assume he must be telling the truth, and no further oath or clarification is necessary. (It is worthwhile noting that although the people who stood at Mount Sinai did not have this chutzpah and audacity to lie and deny the entire amount to their lenders, later generations were less upright, and eventually a Rabbinical oath was instituted for the sake of getting the truth out of people who denied the entire amount claimed by the lender).
Rashi states on our daf that the logical reasoning that “A person does not have the audacity to lie and deny owing a loan to the lender” is the reason why a person who denies the entire claim is exempt from a Torah oath. If he denies the entire amount, he must be telling the truth.
Tosefot in Bava Metzia (3a), however, apparently disproves this reasoning of Rashi, and instead offers a completely different explanation for why a kofer hakol does not require a Torah oath. If the lender dies and the heir of the lender is claiming repayment of the loan, the borrower would not be acting in a brazen manner if he were to falsely deny owing the entire amount being claimed by the heir. The heir was not actually present when the loan took place, and a denial to him would not be brazen since the heir likely does not have clear knowledge of the details and history of the loan. Therefore, Tosefot offers a reason different than Rashi’s to explain why a person who completely denies a claim for loan repayment is exempt from an oath according to the Torah. There is a special teaching in a verse in the Torah from which we learn that one who admits to part of the claim for loan repayment must take a Torah oath, in which he swears that he does not owe the rest of the claim (Ex. 22:8). Since the Torah writes a verse as source for a Torah oath only in the case in which the borrower admits to part of the claim of the lender, it logically follows that there is no Torah oath for a borrower who completely denies owing any of the amount claimed by the lender.
Bava Kama 107a
