Lost & Found Towels

Aryeh had a busy Friday afternoon. After going to the mikveh, he hurried home to prepare for Shabbos, accidentally leaving his towel behind.

He remembered the towel just before Shabbos, but by then it was too late to return. “I’ll get it next week,” he thought.

The following week, Aryeh returned to the mikveh. He saw a towel hanging near the place where he had left his the previous week. It looked very similar to his, but he couldn't be sure since it was a standard towel, a brand that many people use.

He took it from the hook and examined it carefully. “Is this mine?” he wondered. “It definitely looks like it.”

Someone came out of the mikveh and began getting dressed.

“Excuse me,” Aryeh said. “Do you know if this towel belongs to anyone here?”

“I have no idea,” the man replied. “Why?”

“I left my towel here last Friday,” Aryeh explained. “This one looks like mine, but I can’t identify it with certainty.”

The man shrugged. “If you think it’s probably yours, why not take it?”

Aryeh hesitated. “Because other people leave towels here, too. Maybe someone else left this one.”

“But isn’t it likely that it’s the towel you left?”

“It likely is,” Aryeh said. “But it might not be, and I don’t want to take someone else’s towel, even if I’m missing my own.”

The man thought for a moment. “Why don't you ask Rabbi Dayan?” he suggested

“That’s a good idea,” Aryeh said. He took out his phone and called Rabbi Dayan.

“I left my towel in the mikveh last week,” Aryeh explained. “Now there’s a similar towel here, but I can’t definitively identify it as mine.”

“Can I take the towel that looks just like mine?”

“Minchas Yitzchak (3:17) addresses this question,” replied Rabbi Dayan.

“He first refers to the Noda b’Yehuda (E.H. #46), who discusses whether, when something is missing and something similar is found at that place or nearby, we can associate it with the missing item. Minchas Yitzchak adds that when there is no prior contraindicating halachic chazakah – like lost items that nobody else has monetary possession (chazakah) of – there is more reason to make the association.

However, he recants that approach based on the halacha that although identifying the place where an item was lost can serve as a siman, a riverbank – where many people leave items – is not a siman. Just as you left your item there, someone else may also have left his item there (C.M. 262:9).

Thus, since many people leave towels in the mikveh, the place in which you found the towel cannot serve as a siman, nor can we necessarily associate the towel you found with the one you lost.

Nonetheless, he concludes – based on Taz (C.M. 136:2) – that if you took the towel and held it for a long time, you can assume that it is yours if nobody subsequently inquired about it, since then we can presume yei’ush even if it belongs to another. Although Ketzos (136:2) rejects the Taz – since yei’ush applies only after the other person’s item came into your hands – here the towel might be yours, so if nobody seeks it, you can presume that it was yours.

PischeiChoshen (Aveidah 3:[53]), however, maintains simply that if you found a lost item like yours that has no siman, you can take it for yourself even though you do not know for sure that it is yours. Even if the true owner was not yet aware of his loss, and normally you cannot take a lost item when there is no siman, that is only when you know it is not yours. However, if it might be yours – and if even another person who lost a similar item would come, he too would not be able to claim it, since there is no siman – you may take it. Therefore, Pischei Choshen holds that you may take the towel, despite the fact that the place cannot serve as a siman.

Nonetheless, if there are security cameras installed and the item is of substantial value, it is questionable whether you can take the one you found. Moreover, if you later see that the towel is not yours, you cannot keep it, except according to the dispensation for doing so when someone accidentally exchanged your garment with his (see Pischei Choshen 4:[44] and Hayashar v’Hatov 21 (5776) pp. 63-65).

“Thus,” concluded Rabbi Dayan, “if the unidentifiable towel may be yours, you can take it, and you may use it, certainly after time passes.”

Verdict: When you lose an item without a siman and later find a similar item in the same place, even if the place cannot serve as a siman – such as with a towel left at the mikveh – you may take it for yourself.