Bava Kamma 93 - Invitation to Do Damage (Torts)

If one says to his fellow, "Blind my eye," "Cut off my hand," or "Break my leg," and the fellow did so, the assailant is liable to pay for the damage. Even if the first person added, "on condition that there will be no liability," the assailant is nevertheless liable.

If one says to his fellow, "Tear my garment," the damager is liable, but if the owner added, "on condition that there will be no liability," - the damager is not liable.

If one steals pieces of wood and makes them into utensils, he pays the value as of the time of the robbery.

Art: Frans Mortelmans - The Carpenter

Bava Kamma 92 - Assailant Must Ask Forgiveness from his Victim (Torts)

Although the assailant gives his victim compensation, the assailant is not pardoned by God until he requests forgiveness from his victim, as it says, "And God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him – Behold, you are to die... but now, return the man's wife [and appease him enough] so that he will [even] pray for you."

And from where do we know that if the victim does not forgive him, the victim is considered cruel? It says, "...Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Avimelech..."

Art: Prodigal Son by Rembrandt

Bava Kamma 91 - Assessment of Weapons (Torts)

"If two men fight together, and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist..."

Says Rabbi Shimon HaTimni: "An extra word 'fist' teaches us that just as a fist, the weapon must be available for inspection," - but Rabbi Akiva disagrees. However, they agree that an assessment is required: the court must assess that the injury was probable and not an accident.

If one humiliates someone with words, he is not liable for any payment; however, the offender may lose his share in the World to Come.

It is forbidden to cut down valuable fruit trees.

Art: Hanging Knife and Jack of Hearts by John Frederick Peto

Bava Kamma 90 - Amounts Paid for Humiliation (Torts)

One who boxes (alternatively, shouts into) the ear of his fellow must give him a Sela ($200), but Rabbi Yehudah says a Maneh ($5,000). If he slaps him on the cheek, he gives him 200 zuz ($10,000); if he does it with the back of his hand, 400 zuz.

If he pulled his ear, yanked his hair, spat on him, and his spittle reached him, removed his cloak from him, or bared a woman's head in the marketplace, he gives him (or her) 400 zuz ($20,000).

This is the general rule: Everything depends on the victim's level of honor and on the societal position of the one causing humiliation. The amounts above are the maximum.

Art: A Fight by Maerten Van Cleve

Bava Kamma 89 - Trading in One's Ketubah (Torts)

A married woman can sell her Ketubah with the stipulation that if she is widowed or divorced, the buyer will collect the entire face value of the Ketubah. Still, if she dies during her husband's lifetime, he will receive nothing. Since the buyer takes a significant risk in making such a purchase, the price he pays is steeply discounted from the face value of the Ketubah.

Such a sale should not be made because a man is not allowed to keep his wife even for one hour without a Ketubah.

If the wife injures her husband, he can't collect this speculative value of the Ketubah.

Art: Encounter by Matisse

Bava Kamma 88 - Payment for the Humiliation of a Canaanite Slave (Torts)

One who wounds a Canaanite slave of others is liable to all five categories of payment; Rabbi Yehudah says that "a man and his brother" excludes a slave from humiliation payment. And the Rabbis? The slave IS your brother in (some) commandments. Then, can the slave testify in court? No, since the slave is similar to a woman and a minor, who also observe some commandments yet can't testify in court.

A wife can bequeath her possessions to her son, out of the husband's reach. However, in Usha, it was enacted that the husband gets back the usufruct property bequeathed or sold by his wife.

Art: Friends at the Theater, Ludovic Halevy and Albert Cave by Edgar Degas

Bava Kamma 87 - One Who is Obligated and Does Observe the Laws (Torts)

According to Rabbi Yehudah, a blind person is exempt from the laws of exile for inadvertent murder because of "without seeing," from all monetary laws because of "according to these laws" and from all the laws of the Torah because of "these are the ... the laws."  

Said Rav Yosef, who was blind but observed all the commandments, "I am glad that the law is not like Rabbi Yehudah because one who is obligated and does is greater."

Regarding a deaf person, a deranged person, and a minor, one who wounds them is liable, but if they wound others, they are not liable.

Art: A Mad Woman by Eugene Delacroix

Bava Kamma 86 - Damages for Temporary Wound and Humiliation (Torts)

If one injures another, but it will heal, he pays for the loss of employment, but does he also pay damages for the temporary reduction in value? 

Can we derive the answer from this ruling: "One who strikes his father but doesn't inflict a wound is obligated in five payments?" - No! Here, he made his father bald with a depilatory cream, and his father used to dance in taverns.

One who humiliates a blind or a sleeping person is liable, but a sleeping person who humiliates someone is not liable. In sum, one is not liable for humiliation unless he intends to injure.

Art: Figures in the Tavern by Auguste de Wilde

Bava Kamma 85 - Payments for Pain and for Loss of Employment (Torts)

How do we calculate compensation for pain? We assess how much money a person wants to give to have his hand - that is, inscribed to the government for amputation - anesthetized to avoid the difference between amputation by sword and amputation by potion, presumably painless.

How do we calculate the loss of employment? We view the victim as though he were a watchman of cucumbers since this is all he can do in his current state without a hand. And if you say that the person will earn more when he recovers – that payment is already included in the amount for his hand.

Art: The Boy's Hand by Albrecht Durer

Bava Kamma 84 - An Eye for an Eye Means Monetary Payment (Torts)

In the school of Rabbi Ishmael, they taught, "so shall be given upon him," and there is no giving but money. From here, we see that the assailant gives cash as payment for the damage.

In the school of Chizkiyah, they taught "an eye for an eye" and a "life for a life" and not a life and an eye for an eye. If it enters your mind that the payment for blinding someone is losing an actual eye, it could happen that at the time when the court was blinding the assailant, he died. This means that an eye for an eye refers to a monetary payment.

Art: The Barchfeld Money Changer Weighing Coins by Johann Georg Soemmer 

Bava Kamma 83 - Aspects of The Injury (Torts)

One who inflicts a wound on his fellow can be liable on account of him for "five things" - five aspects of the injury:

* for actual damage;
* for pain;
* for healing;
* for loss of employment;
* and for humiliation.

How do we assess actual damage? If the assailant blinded the victim's eye, cut off his hand, or broke his leg, we view the victim as if he were a servant being sold in the market, and we appraise how much he was worth before he was wounded and how much he is worth now.

Art: Franz Heinrich Corinth on His Sickbed

Bava Kamma 82 - Ezra Leading Jews back to the Land of Israel (Torts)

Ezra enacted ten regulations when he led the Jews to return to the land of Israel from Babylon. They include

* Worshipers read from the Torah scroll during the Minchah service on the Sabbath;

* They read from the Torah on Monday and Thursday;

* The courts adjudicate on Monday and Thursday;

* The people launder on Thursday to honor the Sabbath;

* People should eat garlic on Friday night because it increases the semen;

* A woman shall rise early on Friday morning and bake so that bread would be available to the poor;

* Peddlers of perfumes shall circulate in towns to make adornments available to women.

Art: The Washing by Jean Baptiste Greuze

Bava Kamma 81 - Orderly and Amicable Settlement of the Land of Israel (Torts)

Joshua stipulated ten conditions with the settlers of the Land of Israel when he divided the land among them, and their inheritance of the land was contingent upon their acceptance for orderly and amicable settlement. They include

* people can pasture their animals in privately owned forests, and the owners shall not object;

* they may gather wood from their fellows' fields;

* they may gather grasses for animal feed from any place;

* one may cut off shoots from another person's tree in order to plant or graft them;

* all may fish with hooks and lines in the sea of Tiberias (Kinneret).

Art: Boy in a Boat Fishing by Theodore Robinson

Bava Kamma 80 - Settlement of the Land of Israel (Torts)

The Rabbis wished to facilitate the Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel. They prohibited raising small domesticated animals, such as sheep and goats, in Israel - since they tend to wander off for grazing and destroy the vegetation in the peoples' fields.

It is allowed to keep sheep and goats needed as sacrifices for 30 days before festivals. Butchers have similar allowances. It is not prohibited to raise large domesticated animals like cows in Israel because it is hard to import them.

If a door is closed on a person's success, it will not speedily be opened except with prayer and self-improvement.

Art: Self Portrait by Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen

Bava Kamma 79 - A Thief Asked Someone to Sell the Stolen Animal (Torts)

If one stole an animal and gave it to another person to slaughter it for him, and he slaughtered it, or he stole an animal and gave it to another person to sell it for him, and he sold it – he pays the fourfold or fivefold payment. 

Even though the general rule is that "there is no agency for an act of transgression," and typically, the agent for sale or slaughter should bear the responsibility, this case is an exception. Since for any sale, another person is needed anyway, here, too, an agent may be involved in the sale or slaughter.

Art: Fidelity by Biton Riviere

Bava Kamma 78 - A Thief Who Doesn't Pay Fourfold (Torts)

If someone declared, "It is hereby incumbent upon me to bring a burnt offering," he then designated a specific ox as the offering. Another person came and stole it; the one who promised the offering is required to replace it. However, the thief can exempt himself from further liability with a lamb, which satisfies the obligation.

Suppose the thief sold all of the stolen animal, except one-hundredth of it, or slaughtered it and made a mistake in the slaughtering so that it became non-kosher in his hands. In that case, he pays the twofold payment of an ordinary thief but doesn't pay the fourfold or fivefold payment.

Art: A Thief by Fernando Botero

Bava Kamma 77 - Anything that Can Be Redeemed is as if it Was Redeemed (Torts)

When people or things come into contact with ritual impurity from a human corpse, they may be purified by sprinkling a mixture of water and the ashes of a red heifer.

The red heifer was slaughtered in a designated place on the Mount of Olives, which faces the portals of the Temple. Rabbi Shimon maintains that even after the red heifer was slaughtered on its pyre, it may be redeemed if a nicer heifer is found.

Similarly, if the thief slaughtered a stolen blemished offering outside the Temple, he is liable to the fourfold or fivefold payment – since that animal could be redeemed and eaten.

Art: Woman Milking a Red Cow by Karel Dujardin

Bava Kamma 76 - A Thief Dedicates the Stolen Animal to the Temple (Torts)

If one stole an ox or a sheep, consecrated it to the Temple, and then slaughtered or sold it, he pays a twofold payment for stealing but doesn't pay the four- or fivefold.

Why not? Granted, when he slaughters it, it's the Temple's property, not the original owner.

But when he consecrates it, let this be equivalent to selling a stolen animal to the Temple – thus making him liable for a fourfold or fivefold payment? No! Consecration differs from a sale: after consecration, the animal is still called "A sacrifice of so-and-so," not a "sacrifice of the Temple."

Art: David Garrick and his Wife by his Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton by Johann Zoffany

Bava Kamma 75 - No Payment for Slaughtering a Stolen Animal on the Sabbath (Torts)

If the fact that one stole an ox or sheep was established by the testimony of two witnesses, and the fact that he then slaughtered or sold the stolen animal was established by the testimony of one witness or by his own admission, he pays the twofold payment for stealing, but not the fourfold or fivefold payment, for lack of proof.

If he stole a sheep and then slaughtered it on the Sabbath, he pays the twofold payment for stealing, but not the fourfold payment for slaughtering, because slaughtering on the Sabbath is a capital offense anyway, and "one is subject only to the greater penalty."

Art: Jacob and Laban's Flock by Jusepe de Ribera

Bava Kamma 74 - False Witnesses Are Executed (Torts)

Two witnesses testified that one person murdered another. Later, another set of witnesses came and contradicted the first, and then also made them false witnesses by saying, "You were with us in a different place at this time and therefore could not have witnessed the murder."

Rabbi Yochanan says that the first witnesses are executed, for although their testimony was invalidated and set aside, and they stopped being witnesses, they are still punished as false witnesses. Rabbi Elazar says they are not executed because he disagrees with the rule that "contradiction is the beginning of making witnesses false."

Art: Le Dispute - The Argument by Frederick Hendrik Kaemmerer

Bava Kamma 73 - False Witness Disqualified Back to the First False Testimony (Torts)

Suppose the fact that one stole an ox was established by the testimony of two witnesses, and the fact that he slaughtered or sold it was established by the testimony of two other witnesses, and both pairs of witnesses were found false. In that case, the first witnesses pay a twofold payment, and the latter witnesses pay a threefold payment.

Suppose one testifies and is subsequently found to be a false witness. In that case, Abaye says that he is disqualified from serving as a witness retroactively from the moment he testified, and all his testimonies given in the interim are invalid.

This is one of the six cases abbreviated Y A L K G M where the law follows Abaye against Rava.

Art: Evening Landscape With Two Men by Caspar David Friedrich

Bava Kamma 72 - Who Pays Fourfold? (Torts)

If one steals an animal and slaughters it in the Temple but without consecrating it as a sacrifice, he is liable to fourfold or fivefold payment. We see from here that slaughtering becomes legally valid only at the end of the cut. Had slaughtering been valid from the beginning of the cut, the animal would have become forbidden for benefit after the start of slaughter and stopped belonging to the owner, resulting in no fourfold payment.

If the fact that one stole and sold an ox or sheep was established by the testimony of two witnesses, who were later found to be false witnesses, the witnesses pay the fourfold or fivefold payment.

Art: A District Court by Mikhail Ivanovich Zoshchenko

Purim - are men allowed to dress as women?

The Rama, in the Code of Jewish Law, mentions two opposite opinions on this question: 1. There is no prohibition. 2. It is prohibited. He then says that the custom is to follow the first, more lenient, opinion.

Bava Kamma 71 - A Son and his Mother Who is a Harlot (Torts)

If a son cohabits with his mother, who is a harlot, promising her a sheep, that sheep may not be brought as a sacrifice. She can't sue him for the sheep in court. Since the rule is that "one is subject only to the greater (death) penalty," their deal is invalid, but the prohibition still takes effect.

If one stole an ox of two partners and then admitted his liability to one of them, - he doesn't pay a fivefold payment to him, but does he pay half of it to the other partner? Rav Nachman said, "No! Five oxen and not five half-oxen!" but the following day, he admitted he erred due to fasting.

Art: Mother and Son by Thomas Sully

Bava Kamma 70 - Where "One is Subject Only to the Greater Penalty" Rule Doesn't Apply (Torts)

If the fact that he stole an ox or a sheep was established by the testimony of two witnesses, and the fact that he then slaughtered or sold the stolen animal was established by their testimony as well, or by the testimony of two other witnesses, he pays fourfold and fivefold payment.

If he stole an ox or sheep and then sold it on the Sabbath, or if he then sold it for idolatry, he pays fourfold or fivefold payments. Had he slaughtered on Sabbath - a capital offense - he would be exempt from payment because of the "one is subject only to the greater penalty" rule.

Art: Butcher's Shop at Schaftlarn an der Isar by Lovis (Franz Heinrich Louis) Corinth

Bava Kamma 69 - Complete Ownership Required (Torts)

Rabbi Yochanan said: "If a thief stole some property and the owner did not yet despair of recovering it, neither can consecrate it. The thief can't consecrate it because it is not his, and the owner can't consecrate it because it is not in his possession."

But what would be Rabbi Yochanan's source, being that there are Mishnas that rule otherwise?

His source is another Misha: One who steals a stolen item from a thief does not pay the twofold payment. Why not? He doesn't pay the original owner a twofold payment because the article is not the owner's possessions – by the same token, the owner can't consecrate it.

Art: A Thief by Fernando Botero

Bava Kamma 68 - The Owner Dispaired (Tort)

If a thief steals an object, and the owner despairs of ever getting it back, does this despair effect the acquisition by the thief? Rava says that it does not, because "...and you bring what is stolen, the lame, and the sick..." - just as lame has no remedy to make the offering fit, so too stealing makes it forever unfit because it remains stolen from the owner.

However, Rabbi Elazar says that since the thief is later punished for selling the article, the only way for his sale to be valid is if he has acquired title to it through its owner's despair.

Art: Poultry Seller by Gabriel Metsu

Bava Kamma 67 - A Change in Name is a Change Indeed (Torts)

If someone stole a hide and trimmed it for use, he acquired it. Because it is now a usable utensil, it is susceptible to ritual impurity. If he only designated it in his mind as a tray, it also became a utensil susceptible to ritual impurity. But why should it be so, it hasn't changed?

Rav Yosef answered that it is a changed object because of a name change. It was a hide and is now a tray. This question remained unresolved for 22 years until Rav Yosef was promoted to Head of the Academy and received Divine assistance in resolving questions to enhance his reputation.

Art: Still Life - Two Glass of Red Wine, a Bottle of Wine; a Corkscrew and a Plate of Biscuits on a Tray by Albert Anker

Bava Kamma 66 - The Thief Acquires the Stolen Article (Torts)

A change to the stolen object effects its acquisition by a thief. He is still liable for his theft, but if he kills and sells an ox or sheep, he is not liable for the fourfold or fivefold payment because now he slaughters his own animal.

In the phrase "...and he shall return the stolen article that he stole..." the extra words "as he stole" teach that if the article is as it was when he stole, he returns the article, but if the thief transformed it, he is not required to return the stolen article itself, but rather its value.

Art: A Fair at Tula in Holy Week by Andrei Andreevich Popov

Bava Kamma 65 - How Much is the Thief to Pay? (Torts)

A thief pays the principal according to the value of the stolen article when he stole it, and he pays the twofold payment, fourfold, and fivefold payments according to the value of the stolen article when he is sued in court.

If, however, the stolen article is still in the thief's original state, he returns the article as is.

If an unpaid custodian claimed that a deposit he was safekeeping was stolen and swore to that effect but then admitted the fact that he took the item for himself, he pays the principal, adds one-fifth, and brings a guilt offering.

Art: The Payment Of Dues by Georges de La Tour

Bava Kamma 64 - To Pay or Not To Pay Twofold? (Torts)

The verses "If a man steals an ox or a sheep... If being found will it be found the stolen article in his possessions, whether an ox, a donkey, or a sheep, live, he shall pay twofold" are expounded as amplification-limitation-amplification:

"Being found" and "will it be found" include everything and limitations: ox, donkey, and sheep exclude one thing each: ox excludes land, donkey excludes slaves, and sheep exclude legal documents from twofold payment. 

"If being found, will it be found" excludes from the twofold payment one who incriminates himself. Even if witnesses do come after his confession, he pays only what he stole.

Art: A Farmer At Rest With His Stock by Eugene Verboeckhoven

Bava Kamma 63 - Twofold, Fourfold, or Fivefold Payment for Stealing (Torts)

The rule of twofold payment applies to more situations than the rule of fourfold or fivefold payment, for the rule of twofold payment applies both to living things and to inanimate objects. In contrast, the fourfold or fivefold payment law applies only to an ox or sheep.

One who steals after a thief does not pay a twofold payment because twofold payment applies only when “...it is stolen from the house of the man...”. Likewise, one who slaughters or sells after a thief does not pay the fourfold or fivefold payment.

Art: Le Mont-de-Piete (The Pawn Shop) or Chez Ma Tante by Jean-Georges Beraud