There are many ways to relate to property.
Other than owning possessions, our Torah portion teaches us of four alternate ways in which objects can be in our possession. It also details our responsibility towards them in case they become damaged while under our care (Shmote / Exodus 22, 9-15), based on the level of benefit gained and financial value allocated to that benefit.
The Mishna (Baba Metzia 7, 8) summarizes these 4 modes of possession for us:
There are four kinds of custodians: an unpaid custodian (shomer chinam), a borrower (sho'el), a paid custodian (shomer sachar) and a hirer (socher)
The degree of responsibility is a combination of measuring the degree of benefit the custodian derives, combined with the amount of payment the custodian laid out.
At the level of least benefit/least profit, an unpaid custodian is the most protected - he will take an oath that he wasn't negligent and wash his hands of any responsibility.
For example: Imagine that you are the unpaid custodian - a friend parks their car in your driveway while going on vacation. While away, a drunk driver steers into her car and smashes it. You would not be responsible for the ensuing damage. In this situation you have derived no pleasure from the parked car and you weren't paid to look after it.
Next in line is the paid custodian, followed by the hirer, and culminating with the borrower.
It is the borrower (the shoel) that I would like us to examine for a moment. The borrower is the one that reaps the most pleasure from the borrowed object without paying any fee! All gain - no expense! But on the other hand - the borrower bears maximum liability. The borrower is responsible for any damage that occurs to the borrowed object. You borrow a book from your neighbor and you child spills their chocolate milk on it - you're responsible! You borrow a suit to wear to an interview and getting into the car the jacket gets stuck in the door and rips - you are responsible!
There are actually only two situations in which a borrower would not be legally liable -
A. Reasonable use - If you borrow a saw to put up shelves in your garage and in the process of using it the blade becomes dull you would not be liable since the owner can presume that you borrowed it to use for that specific purpose. The lender gave it to you knowing what you were going to do with it. But... if you decided at the same time to use it to hold up the shelf and in doing so you twisted the blade of the saw - for this you would be liable.
B. The owner is with you when the damage occurs - The Torah specifically spells out this scenario - "And if its (the object) owner is with him (the borrower/"ba'alav imo") he (the borrower) shall not pay" (Shmote/Exodus 22, 14)
In kabbalah and hassidut there have been many sages that interpreted these four levels of "ownership" as spiritual states. The Holy Sh'la (Sh'nei Luchot Ha-Brit, R' Yeshaya Horwitz, 1558-1630) interprets them as different levels of embracing the world of mitzvot. The last Lubavitcher rebbe takes this interpretation and, in the best of the hassidic tradition, turns things upside-down.
For Reb M.M. Schnerson the highest level is the unpaid custodian (shomer chinam). He sees this person as one that observes the mitzvot without any desire to receive any kind of reward or compensation for all of his toil and turmoil. It is sufficient for him that the Torah has been placed in his hands. No more is asked for. The Lubavitcher rebbe aspires to see us all as unpaid custodians of the Torah.
Between these two giants resides, historically, the rebbe, Reb Yeyva (Ya'akov Yoseph ben Yehuda, (1738-1791).
When looking at the halachic foundation of these paradigms, he too rereads them while introducing the very qualification that we mentioned above - "Ba'alav Imo".
He bases his interpretation on the pasuk (verse) "Achat Shalti me'et Hashem" (Tehillim/Psalm 27,4). The literal translation of this verse is - "There is one thing that I ask of God - to sit in the house of God and to visit His palace." But the rebbe, Reb Yeyva understands this mystically: the word Achat (one) becomes a synonym to the word "soul", and the word Sha'alti he reads not as request / ask but rather borrow - as in our fourth custodian - the "Shoel". Thus he reads our pasuk as saying: "I borrow my soul from God"!
With this interpretive mind he incorporates the halachic rulings to his readings and asks: We enter the world borrowing our soul from God. When our time to leave the world comes we return it to its true owner. It is impossible to return our soul to God the way we received it. It is clear that many moments in our lives we have used our soul inappropriately. This, for the rebbe, Reb Yeyva, would render us by Jewish law, obligated to pay for such damages! But who, we may ask, has the spiritual capital to pay God back for soul-damages???
"Ba'alav Imo!" - If we walk through our lives with the sense of God's presence then the Owner of the soul, the Master of the World, is with us every step we take. And if He is with us, then, as the Torah explicitly rules - we are not liable! The Owner of the soul is with us every step of the way, no matter what it is that we are doing. The rebbe, Reb Yeyva offers us a gift of consciousness. A gift of knowing where our soul comes from and a gift of choosing to never walk alone!
May we enter this Shabbat and the days to follow with this sense of God's presence in our lives.
Shabbat shalom.