New on the site: Michi-bot. An intelligent assistant based on the writings of Rabbi Michael Avraham.

A charge from a tooth or a foot

שו”תCategory: Talmudic studyA charge from a tooth or a foot
asked 5 years ago

Hello Rabbi,
 
Bava Kama, page 20, page 1:

He who is in a hurry, he has eaten and is in trouble, and he has brought it to the king. He is responsible for a great deal of damage, and he is in complete loss, for no reason, because his guests are in the bowl of the king. He is a slave to the king and to the king.

Rava is liable for full damages on both the turnip and the barrel. Is the liability for the barrel based on a tooth (as if the goat broke the barrel as part of her desire to eat, and therefore “attaches” this to the enjoyment of the turnip) or based on a foot (since walking/climbing is something she is used to)?
 
Thank you very much.


Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 5 years ago
In the plain language of the Gemara, it seems that it is a foot and not a tooth, because the reasoning there is that it is a path. Although the word “teeth” is a path, in order to impose a duty on the tooth, they had to reason that there is a benefit to the harm, and they did not bring that up. See the Rambam who brings two illustrations in the same halakha: bread in a basket, where it seems that the basket had to be torn apart to get to the bread, and the second illustration is a turnip that the animal got entangled in a barrel and broke. Here it seems that this was not necessary to get to the turnip, but rather it happened on the way. The second case seems simpler, that it is a leg. In the first case, there is a side to saying that it is a tooth, because the damage to the basket is necessary to get to the bread and therefore there is pleasure in it. Note that there is no need here to reach your understanding that it is an appendix, but in this illustration there is pleasure in the actual damage (because it allows you to get to the food). Only in the second illustration do we need your understanding, if at all. Perhaps we can learn about your opinion from other contexts: 1. The words of the Rambam in the laws of Shabbat, regarding a brother-in-law and regarding a dyer, in which he writes that the one who prepares the eye of the dye passes through the dyer. This means that preparation for the thing is considered part of the thing. 2. And we also see according to some of the Rishonim that in the koshering of a mitzvah, it is like the beginning of fulfilling the mitzvah itself. There are several other contexts in which this is seen as such, and so on.

Discover more from הרב מיכאל אברהם

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

שולייתא replied 5 years ago

And also the devices for the two loaves of bread and the shofar and more on Shabbat and devices for the soul of the Jews. If this is not the place for it, unfortunately, is there another place where you wrote about it? It is very interesting to sort and fence off the fences explained in this. But first, wisdom, one must hope that there is some place where Maher Yi Engel collects four or five zillion examples from distant ends of the earth and sea.

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

All the devices are generally mitzvah devices that I wrote. I addressed this a little in the article on the tenth root. But not to the generalization discussed here.
And so it is in the words of the Maimonides who explains in detail about leaven and matzah that the leaven is forbidden because it ferments the dough. I addressed this in my article on leaven on Passover and the Passover as historical prohibitions.

שולייתא replied 5 years ago

I read the article to the tenth root, it was very tasty, thank you? [Apologies for the gap in the discussion. The problem is that issues are serious business and it is really burdensome to read without opening and carefully reviewing it, and it also blocks my mind from digesting it. But the capitalization became too demanding for me and it turned out that I was content with reading it in a haphazard manner and if I got it wrong, the ”m].
You said that it is different from the generalization discussed here, and I assume that the intention is the same as the distinction between a basket and a loaf (which is indeed similar to the tenth root in technical random kosher) and a turnip and a barrel. So to expand from the examples of the eye of color and kosher that precede the thing, to the case of a barrel that is an appendix (and not kosher), were there actually no examples given? Something got confusing for me here.
(In another Tikbook I chose the nickname Full Width of Your Country)

מיכי Staff replied 5 years ago

The generalization here I mean is the general claim that deals with a device for something that took care of that something, as a generalization to the discussion of devices for a mitzvah (it would be appropriate to say that in mitzvah devices they take care of the mitzvah itself, but not every device is part of the gift). Therefore, it is not certain that this can be simulated in the case of the basket either.

שולייתא replied 5 years ago

But utensils are not only in the mitzvah but also utensils for eating food, which is not really a mitzvah (or is it? Although one can eat something else) and even though the essential purpose is eating and not preparing food. (And by the way, maybe since utensils are forbidden, there is really support for the claim that utensils are an intermediate state. Aal”t there is something like that on the question of the Rabbinical Rambam and the question of the Sipika).
There is also kosher for impurity and the difference between a shomer (skin = basket) and a hand (a bone with meat at the end, somewhat similar to a barrel) and R’ Yochanan has a hand for kosher like a hand for impurity because kosher for the beginning of impurity. I also saw this once that evidence was brought on the subject and I have now opened it there in the Cholin Kiych, but the memory of the place where they say, "I do not know" as it is written, "He sat down and does not return behind him" is found in the scholars exchanging each other. And from my point of view, I am not familiar with the issue there, and if it is not relevant, I will explain it because I cannot understand it.

Leave a Reply

Back to top button