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Hashavat Aveda(Returning the lost)
Hashavat Aveda refers to the biblical commandment to return a lost item to the person who lost it. The laws of what is considered a lost item, how long one has to try and find the owner, and other aspects of Hashavat Aveda are detailed and ==complex.

Primary Source
The commandment is originally found in the book of Deuteronomy(23:1-3) when it is stated:” You shall not see your brother's ox or sheep straying, and ignore them. [Rather,] you shall return them to your brother. 2 But if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, you shall bring it into your house, and it shall be with you until your brother seeks it out, whereupon you shall return it to him. 3So shall you do with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment, and so shall you do with any lost article of your brother which he has lost and you have found. You shall not ignore [it].”

When is something considered to be lost?
When one finds a lost object, deciding whether to keep it or return it, depends on whether or not it has a unique identifying aspect to it. This “sign” is called a “Siman”. A “sign”--a siman—would help the finder track the owner of the lost object and determine if the owner—who lost the item—is indeed the real owner. A siman has to be a unique feature, and can’t just be a generic feature. If, for example, one finds a brand new and unidentifiable object then you can infer that the “looser” gave up hope and you can keep it. The reason you can keep it is because due to the fact that if there is no sign we can assume that “Ye’ush” took place. The owner has given up.

The laws of Ye’ush
Yeush is when an owner gives up hope for his or her misplaced item. According to the rabbis, if the owner of the item has given up hope, i.e. Ye’ush, the finder may keep the lost object. If you aren’t aware if the owner has given up and it is an insignificant item that has no siman, a sign, such as a coin, you are allowed to keep it. There is a famous dispute in the Talmud between Abayeh and Rava whether Ye’ush can take affect retroactively in a case where the owner is sure to give up when they find out that they lost the item but have not found out about the loss yet. Identifying the rightful owner

The rabbis interpret the verse:” it shall be with you until your brother seeks it out, whereupon you shall return it to him “, as coming to say that one should not return the lost item unless one has confirmed that the person to whom the object is being returned is indeed the rightful owner. The litmus test for this, is seeing if the person claiming the item can identify and unique feature in the lost object which no one other than the owner could have knowns of. For example, if one lost their shoe and claiming it saying that it was an Adidas shoe, their claim would not be accepted. However, if they would say that the left shoe had a small red stain on the top, then that would be an acceptable siman and the object therefore must be returned. According to “Jewish Law”, one is not permitted to return a lost item to someone who didn’t properly identify the item. This is because we fear an unscrupulous individual will try and claim the item even though it does not belong to them.