Question:
Shalom Aleichem. I have the following shayla. Last year my wife gave birth in bikur cholim hospital and she left the hospital on September 5 (5th of Elul). About 2 months later around November or December we realized that there was a skirt that didn’t belong to my wife. What do we do?
Answer:
You have become (perhaps unwittingly) a shomer avaidoh – a guardian of lost property. Your first move would be to attempt to locate the owner of the skirt, perhaps enquiring at the hospital if they have a Lost and Found section, or hanging a sign on the public notice board there announcing that you have found a skirt and requesting that the owner contact you. If anyone correctly identifies it you may return it to them.
If, however, no-one responds, you should estimate how much it would fetch if it were sold today, and write down this amount in a safe place. You can then “sell it to yourself,” so to speak, and use it yourself or otherwise dispose of it. When Eliyahu Hanavi comes, you can ask him to whom it belonged, and give the owner the money.
