R'Yehuda says we announce 'lost item' because we should suspect for liars who might've heard the true owner bemoaning his tallis (for eg) and the liar is familiar with the simanim, he may step forward to falsely claim the lost item when he hears that item being announced.
R'Nachman says if you suspect liars, you would even have to suspect liars when you just announce 'a lost item' - maybe it'll occur to him to step forward and say, "If it's a tallis you found, these are its simanim.'
QUESTION - This is not such a great rebuttal because R'Yehudah could say, "I'm just saying, do what you can. It may not be foolproof, but at least make it harder for liars to come forward."
Also...
According to Rav Safra's answer for the question on Rav Nachman - that the Mishnah doesn't mean the claimant offered NO simanim, just they weren't good simanim, is the chiddush of the Mishnah that low-level simanim don't work?
if that's the whole chiddush of the Mishnah - that low-level simanim aren't good - wouldn't you expect to be told examples of what these no-good simanim are?
Not only does the Mishnah NOT tell you what these type of low-quality simanim these are (ikar chasar min hasefer, if that's the main chiddush in the Mishnah according to R'Nachman...), wouldn't we already know, m'svara, that those types of simanim are no good?
(See 27b - Rashi - that long/short, red/white...Rashi says these aren't good simanim because there's a lot of people/clothes like that.)
Thank you,
Daniel Steinberg, Columbus, OH USA
1)
(a) Possibly, Rav Nachman's argument may be compared to the Mishnah in Pesachim 9a which states that when one has checked one room of the house for Chametz on Erev Pesach, he need not worry that a weasel may later have come along and dragged in some crumbs from another corner. The Mishnah says that if one is going to be concerned about such a possibilty, then in the end he will also start worrying that Chametz was imported to his house from another city. The Mishnah uses the same terminology as Rav Nachman: "For if so, there is no end to this."
(b) One could have said a Halachah that after you checked this room for Chametz, just take a quick look again to ensure that no new Chametz came in. It would not be so difficult to do this. But the Mishnah teaches that if you take this attitude, then there is no limit to where you can end up. You will be checking your house for Chametz all through Pesach.
(c) Rav Nachman has a similar outlook. If you start worrying that people are liars, the possibilites are endless. Instead, Rav Nachman says that you should trust what people say. The Halachah follows Rav Nachman because anyway we only return the Aveidah if excellent Simanim are provided, so we are not concerned that people will cheat.
2)
(a) It seems to me that the Chidush of the Mishnah is that if one gave low-quality Simanim, this is equivalent to giving no Simanim at all. This is hinted to by what the Mishnah says, "and he did not say its Simanim" -- implying that giving low-quality Simanim is like giving no Simanim at all.
(b) I think that it is not necessary for the Mishnah to give us examples of what low-quality Simanim are, since we can work this out ourselves. The key to this is the Rashi that you cited, Daniel, that a Siman that many items possess is not called a Siman. This rule is so obvious that it is not necessary for the Mishnah to give us examples, because everyone knows that white shirts are widespread.
(c) However, I want to say that it is still necessary for the Mishnah to tell us that "he did not say its Simanim" means that he gave low-quality Simanim, because the Chidush is that even if he gave many different low-quality Simanim they cannot combine with each other to make an acceptable Siman. A similar thing is stated by the Rema in Shulchan Aruch, Even ha'Ezer 17:24, that even 100 low-quality Simanim do not combine together to identify a corpse to allow an Agunah to remarry.
3) Daniel, I have been thinking about your good question: If the main Chidush in the Mishnah according to Rav Nachman is that low-quality Simanim are no good, would we not already know that from Sevara?
a) I found a couple of answers to this in the Mefarshim. The Ma'ayan ha'Chochmah (Bava Metzia 28b, end of DH Gemara Iy Imrat Bishlama), writes that the Chidush of the Mishnah is that Tevi'us Ayin does not help. The Gemara above (beginning of 24a) tells us that if a Talmid Chacham never departs from the truth, then we can return a lost item to him simply because he tells us that he recognizes the item, even though he cannot give us a specific Siman. The Chidush of the Mishnah is that we apply this line of thinking specifically for this special kind of Talmid Chacham, not for anyone else. Even though the claimant provides low-quality Simanim and also claims that he recognizes the object as his own, this is not sufficient as long as he cannot provide good Simanim.
b) The Yad Yosef (Bava Metzia 27a, beginning of page 106) explains further why this is a Chidush. It is because, generally speaking, we have a rule: "Bari v'Shema Bari Adif" -- if one person makes a claim of certainty and his opponent makes an uncertain claim, the court accepts the claim of the one who is certain of his claim. Even though we do not apply this rule to take property away from a person who is already holding on to it, nevertheless we might have thought that the person who found the item is not similar to anyone else who owns an item, because the finder does not claim it actually belongs to him. He is merely holding onto it temporarily for the real owner. Therefore, we might have thought that low-quality Simanim, plus Tevi'us Ayin, plus Bari v'Shema Bari Adif, is sufficient to enable the claimant to receive the item. The Chidush of the Mishnah is that all of these arguments are not good enough. The only way of receivng the Aveidah is by providing good Simanim.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom