Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Williams
Dec. 10th, 2017 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mangosteenSo.... someone wondered what a rabbinic discussion of pinball would look like. Here we go....
Rabbi Yonatan of Tverya saw a pinball machine with a credit on it, but no one nearby.
Having a desire to play pinball, he then used the credit, and played a game good enough that he got an extra credit on the machine when he was done. Not having time to play another game, he walked away.
Later that day, he talked with Rabbi Shmuel of Tafron, and mentioned what happened. Rabbi Shmuel was taken aback, asking how Rabbi Yonatan could have taken another person's game away. Surely that's stealing!
Rabbi Yonatan retorted that there was no one around when he saw the credit, and therefore it was unclaimed. It was found as if it were a _talit_ on the ground.
"However," Rabbi Shmuel said, "someone put that credit on the machine, and that person may have come back to the machine later, and found the credit gone."
"Ah ha! " R. Yonatan said, "You see, I got an extra credit. I left the machine in the same state as when I found it. One credit. They wouldn't have known."
"And yet, what if they came when you were there? And also, what if you broke the machine? It's a mechanical object. It's impossible to leave it in the same state."
At which point, R. Yonatan said, "Shmulik, bubbeleh, they just installed a new DDR game at the arcade. I'm buying. Let's go."
Rabbi Yonatan of Tverya saw a pinball machine with a credit on it, but no one nearby.
Having a desire to play pinball, he then used the credit, and played a game good enough that he got an extra credit on the machine when he was done. Not having time to play another game, he walked away.
Later that day, he talked with Rabbi Shmuel of Tafron, and mentioned what happened. Rabbi Shmuel was taken aback, asking how Rabbi Yonatan could have taken another person's game away. Surely that's stealing!
Rabbi Yonatan retorted that there was no one around when he saw the credit, and therefore it was unclaimed. It was found as if it were a _talit_ on the ground.
"However," Rabbi Shmuel said, "someone put that credit on the machine, and that person may have come back to the machine later, and found the credit gone."
"Ah ha! " R. Yonatan said, "You see, I got an extra credit. I left the machine in the same state as when I found it. One credit. They wouldn't have known."
"And yet, what if they came when you were there? And also, what if you broke the machine? It's a mechanical object. It's impossible to leave it in the same state."
At which point, R. Yonatan said, "Shmulik, bubbeleh, they just installed a new DDR game at the arcade. I'm buying. Let's go."
