Learning a Mishnah in Memory of My Father

For the third yahrzeit of my father, מנשה אליעזר בן יצחק, I’d like to learn a Mishnah in his memory.

We’re holding in Bava Metzia, Perek 6, Mishnah 6. Stay with me for a moment—you might not immediately see where this is going, but we’re heading somewhere meaningful.

The Mishnah: The Craftsman as a Guardian

The Mishnah discusses craftsmen—people who work on items that belong to someone else. Think of a tailor, a repairman, or anyone you hand an object to so they can fix it.

The key idea is that while the craftsman has your item, he isn’t just “doing a job.” He becomes a guardian. Specifically, he has the halachic status of a paid guardian (שומר שכר).

That raises a question:

Why is he considered “paid” as a guardian if you didn’t pay him to watch the item—only to repair it?

The answer is that he receives a benefit from the item being in his possession.

What benefit?

One practical example:He can hold the item as security until he gets paid. He doesn’t have to return it immediately. That leverage—having the object as collateral—is itself a form of benefit. And once there is benefit, halachah treats him like a paid guardian, with a higher level of responsibility.

But there’s a turning point.

Once the craftsman says, “I’m done. Your item is repaired. Come take it back,” the benefit ends. At that point, his status drops to that of an unpaid guardian (שומר חינם).

So we learn a powerful principle:

As long as you’re benefiting from holding something entrusted to you, your responsibility rises.When the benefit ends, the obligation changes.

Taking It Deeper: The Soul and the Body

With my father in mind, I wanted to take this Mishnah a little deeper.

Because maybe the Mishnah isn’t only about tailors and garments.

Maybe it’s also about the greatest deposit Hashem ever places in our hands:our neshamah and our guf—our soul and our body.

From day one, Hashem entrusts a person with a neshamah and a guf. And it’s not like we “pay Hashem weekly” for them—there’s no invoice, no subscription, no check we write.

And yet… we clearly benefit from them.

We benefit from being alive.We benefit from strength and movement.We benefit from choice, awareness, love, growth, learning, and purpose.

And if benefit is what creates the halachic category of שומר שכר, then perhaps we can say:

We are shomrei sachar over our neshamah and our guf.

Not because Hashem pays us money to “watch” them—but because we receive benefit from them every day we live.

What That Means Practically

If we’re guardians, then we’re accountable.

A שומר שכר isn’t only responsible for intentional wrongdoing—he’s held to a higher standard, especially when it comes to carelessness and negligence.

So if our neshamah and guf are entrusted to us, we can’t treat them casually.

Guarding the Neshamah

We nourish it with Torah, mitzvot, and tefillah.We protect it by being mindful of what we allow into our minds and hearts.We elevate it through kindness, discipline, and truth.

Guarding the Guf

We care for the body through proper nutrition, movement, sleep, and healthy choices—because the guf isn’t a side detail. It’s part of the entrusted package.

And one day—hopefully at 120—we return the deposit.

And the question won’t be:“Did you own it?”Because we never owned it.

The question will be:“Did you guard it?”

Closing

May this learning be an aliyah for the neshamah of my father,מנשה אליעזר בן יצחק.

Many blessings to take proper care of our neshamah and our guf.