daf bit: Bava Batra 88

[cellio]

The torah commands us to have honest weights and measures. The mishna on today's daf discusses application. A wholesaler of items like oil and wine must clean his measures once in 30 days, because the residue diminishes the volume of what his customer takes away so he can't let it build up. A producer must clean his measures once in 12 months; the talmud assumes that he has fewer customers and fewer transactions than the wholesaler, so stuff doesn't build up as quickly. (R' Shimon ben Gamaliel reverses these, though, arguing that frequent use prevents some buildup and infrequent use allows more to stick.) A shopkeeper, who is presumed to have more customers than the wholesaler, must clean his measures twice a week, wipe his weights once a week, and clean his scales after every weighing. This last is because the pans in the scale are concave, so there's a place for stuff to pool. (88b)

Comments

[siderea]

Ah! While we're here:

1) What's the punishment for not doing these things?

2) How old do we think the torah is?

3) Are there actual words for "wholesaler" and "retailer" in the talmud? Or how are those ideas described?

4) Is there some cost to the cleaning of scales and weights, such that everyone isn't just required to do it all the time? Is there some reason it's desireable to minimize the cleaning?

(Am interested in the history of laws re honesty in commerce, esp regulation of weights and measures.)