Today we start the seventh chapter of Tractate Shevuot. This chapter continues the discussion we’ve been having about oaths and, in particular, the finer details of biblically and rabbinically mandated oaths. The mishnah that opens our chapter states:
All those who take an oath by the Torah take an oath and do not pay.
By taking a biblically mandated oath, a defendant can exempt themselves from paying someone else what they claim they owe. Next, the mishnah points out a key difference with rabbinically mandated oaths.
And these take an oath (mandated by the rabbis and not the Torah) and receive: A hired worker; and one who was robbed; and one who was injured; and one whose opponent is suspect with regard to the oath. And a storekeeper relying on his ledger.
Rabbinic oaths can not only exempt you from payment but can compel others to give you things. The mishnah lists some examples of one who can take a rabbinically mandated oath, and then explains each in depth over the course of the next two pages. Let’s look at one example:
The hired worker — how? One says to his employer: “Give me my wages that are in your possession.” He says: “I gave.” And that one says: “I have not received” – he takes an oath and he receives.
An employee alleges that she has not yet been paid, but her employer insists that she has. In a world before paystubs and records of electronic bank transfers, how can the court decide who is right? The court requires that the employee take an oath that they did not receive their payment, and then obligates the employer to pay it.
Rabbi Yehuda says: Not unless there is partial admission. How so? He said to him: “Give me my wages, 50 dinars, which are in your possession.” And he says: “You have received one golden dinar.”
Rabbi Yehuda limits the power of the employee to collect compensation by insisting that the employee’s oath is only legally effective if the employer has admitted to a partial repayment. Since the employer has admitted in court that they owe the employee money, the court can impose full payment on the basis of the employee’s oath. Rabbi Yehuda seems to be concerned that someone will lie about having even been an employee, and demand payment from someone with whom they never had a financial relationship at all.
Interestingly, halakhic decisors including Maimonides and the Shulchan Aruch follow the first opinion of the mishnah. Why? We will learn tomorrow that an employer likely has many workers, and some of the details of their individual contracts can fall through the cracks. But the employee only has one salary, and it’s her whole livelihood. Given the heightened stakes, we can trust that the employee has the fuller understanding of the details of what she is owed. It’s not enough to know the details of a particular legal case, or how oaths are meant to work — we have to understand the real stakes of each case for the people involved.
Read all of Shevuot 44 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 14, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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