(Mishnah): How is the Mitzvah of Lulav performed?

All would bring their Lulavs to Har HaBayis (the Temple Mount) and the assistants would receive them and arrange them on the top of a bench. The elders would put them in a certain chamber.

They would instruct the people to say, "My Lulav should be a gift to whoever receives it".

The following day (Yom Tov morning) they would arise early and the assistants would throw them their Lulavs. The people would grab and hit each other in pursuit of their Lulavs.

When Beis Din saw that the situation was becoming dangerous, they decreed that each person should take it in his home.

(Gemara - R. Deromaya): This Mishnah could only be the opinion of R. Dosa -

R. Dosa said that in the morning, a person should say that anything that the poor collect today from between the piles of produce should be ownerless (in case the poor mistakenly take the wrong produce).

R. Yehuda says that he should declare this towards evening.

Chachamim say that declaring ownerless under duress is not valid. (The owner is only declaring it ownerless as he is concerned about the poor who are thieves and take more than they are permitted.)

Question: There (above) you say that declaring ownerless under duress is not valid and here (in our Mishnah, concerning the Lulavs in (c)) you say that it is valid?!

Answer (R. Elazar): Here, he is doing it willingly; there he is doing it unwillingly.

R. Chananya son of R. Hilel: R. Elazar is correct - he is certainly making his Lulav ownerless with a full heart, as he has received another Lulav in its place.

Rav ordered the House of Rav Acha and Rav Hamnuna ordered Chevraya that if they give an Esrog to someone on the 1st day of Yom Tov, they should give it with a full heart (without stipulating that it must be returned).

This is like Rav Huna who gave an Esrog to his son -

He said to him - whether it is Yom Tov today or tomorrow, this is your Esrog. (And if a gift with a stipulation that it must be returned is considered a valid gift, he would have to return it tomorrow - this shows that one must give it as a gift with a full heart, without such a stipulation.)