Q&A: Liability Under the Category of Tooth or Foot
Liability Under the Category of Tooth or Foot
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Bava Kamma 20a:
There was a certain goat that saw a turnip on top of a barrel. It climbed up, ate the turnip, and broke the barrel. Rava held it liable for the turnip and for the barrel for full damages. What is the reason? Since it is its normal way to eat a turnip, it is also its normal way to cling on and climb up.
Rava imposed full damages both for the turnip and for the barrel. Is the liability for the barrel under the category of Tooth—so to speak, the goat broke the barrel as part of its desire to eat, and therefore we "attach" this to the benefit from the turnip—or under the category of Foot, since walking/climbing is something it normally does?
Thank you very much.
Answer
From the straightforward reading of the Talmudic text, it seems that this is Foot and not Tooth, because the reasoning given there is that this is its normal way. True, in Tooth too it acts in its normal way, but in order to obligate under Tooth they would have had to explain that the animal derived benefit from the damage, and they did not mention that.
See Maimonides, who brings two cases in the same Jewish law: bread in a basket, where it seems that it has to tear the basket in order to get to the bread; and the second case is a turnip where the animal got entangled with the barrel and broke it. Here it seems that this was not necessary in order to get to the turnip; rather, it happened in the course of its movement. The second case seems more simply to be Foot. In the first case, there is room to say as you suggested that it is Tooth, because the damage to the basket is needed in order to get to the bread, and so there is benefit in it. Note that there is no need here to arrive at your idea that it is merely attached; in that case there is benefit in the very act of damage itself, because it enables access to the food. Only in the second case would we need your reasoning, if at all.
Perhaps your reasoning can be learned from other contexts: 1. The words of Maimonides in the laws of the Sabbath, regarding stirring a pot and regarding dyeing, where he writes that one who prepares the dye solution transgresses on account of dyeing. This implies that preparation toward a thing is considered part of the thing itself. 2. And similarly, according to some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim), preparation for a commandment is considered like the beginning of fulfillment of the commandment itself. There are several other contexts in which one sees something like this, but this is not the place to elaborate.
Discussion on Answer
All such preparations are included in the category of preparation for a commandment that I mentioned. I dealt with this a bit in the article on the tenth root. But not with the broader generalization discussed here.
And similarly in the words of Maimonides, who explains at the beginning of the laws of leaven and matzah that sourdough is forbidden because it causes the dough to become leavened. I discussed that in my article on leaven on Passover and the sciatic nerve as historical prohibitions.
I read the article on the tenth root; it was really delightful, thank you ? [Sorry for the gap in the discussion. The problem is that sugyot are serious business, and it’s really burdensome to read without opening things up and studying carefully, and that also blocks the mind from digesting it. But once I started getting messages about it, it became too demanding for me, so I ended up settling for just reading it superficially; and if I erred, that’s still what happened.]
You said that this is different from the generalization discussed here, and I assume you mean as you distinguished between the basket and bread case—which is indeed similar to the tenth root in the sense of incidental technical preparation—and the turnip and barrel case. So to broaden it: from the examples of the dye solution and preparation, which come before the act itself, to the barrel case, where it is an accompaniment (and not preparation)—were there actually no examples brought for that? Something got blurry for me here.
(In another back-and-forth I chose a pen name drawn from the full breadth of your land.)
By the generalization here I meant the general claim dealing with a preparatory act for something that is secondary to that thing, as a generalization of the discussion about preparations for a commandment. One could say that in preparations for a commandment they are secondary to the commandment itself, but not every preparatory act is part of the thing being prepared for. Therefore, even to the basket case it is not certain that one can compare this.
But preparations are not only for a commandment; there are also preparations for food needs, and that isn’t really a commandment (or is it? even though one could eat something else), even though the essential goal is the eating and not the food preparation. (And parenthetically, maybe from the fact that preparations for preparations are forbidden one can actually support the claim that preparations are an intermediate state. If I recall correctly, there’s something like that regarding rabbinic-level doubt according to Maimonides and double doubt.)
There is also preparation for susceptibility to impurity, and a distinction between a protector (peel = basket) and a handle (a bone at whose end there is meat, somewhat similar to the barrel), and according to Rabbi Yohanan there is a handle for preparation just as there is a handle for impurity, because preparation is the beginning of impurity. I also once saw that brought as evidence on this topic, and I just opened there in Hullin 118, but as for remembering in whose name it was said, I do not know—just as it is written: he sits and does not retrace his steps, and so ends up confusing the sages with one another. In any case, I’m not familiar with that passage, and if it’s not relevant there’s no need to explain, since I probably won’t understand.
And also the preparations for the two loaves and the shofar and the like on the Sabbath, and preparations for food needs on a Jewish holiday. If this isn’t the place for it, unfortunately, is there somewhere else where you wrote about this? It’s very interesting to classify and define clear boundaries here. But first of all, one has to hope there’s some place where Rabbi Joseph Engel gathers four or five zillion examples from the ends of the earth and distant seas.