WEEKLY DAFootnotes #1

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The Weekly Daf by Rav Mendel Weinbach

Bava Kama 2-8; Issue #1
Week of 9 Av - 15 Av 5761 / July 29 - August 4, 2001

A NEW OHRNET FEATURE

With the completion of Mesechta Kiddushin in the Daf Yomi cycle, the OHRNET feature "Weekly Daf" completes its own 7½ year cycle of offering two weekly insights on the seven pages of the Talmud studied that week by Daf Yomi participants throughout the world. We therefore launch a new feature, WEEKLY DAFootnotes, which will offer weekly insights of another nature - historical and textual background for passages from Tanach quoted in the seven weekly dapim.

The insights which appeared in the past on these dapim can be seen on the Ohr Somayach Website, www.ohr.edu.

We begin this new feature with a prayer to the Giver of the Torah to grant us the understanding and ability to see this project through to its successful climax.

Rabbi Mendel Weinbach
And the Ohrnet Staff



The Horns of Prophecy

The horn of the goring ox is a major subject of Mesechta Bava Kama. "Should an ox gore a man or woman" is how the Torah introduces the chapter (Shmot 21:28-32) regarding the financial responsibilities of one who is negligent in guarding his ox.

Goring is defined by the beraita as an attack by the ox using its horn. The source for this definition is a passage (Melachim I 22:11) which describes how Tzidkiyahu ben Canaanah fashioned some horns of metal and prophesied for his royal audience that with these horns the kings of Israel and Yehuda would gore their Aramite enemies until total destruction.

This may explain why goring is identified with horns, but it leaves us with a mystery as to who Tzidkiyahu was and why he was making horns. A closer examination of the source in the Tanach will clear up the mystery.

Achav, the sinful idol-worshipping ruler of the Kingdom of Israel, joined forces with the righteous Yehoshafat, ruler of the Kingdom of Yehuda, to prepare for war against neighboring Aram over the right to the territory of Ramot Gilad. But the latter, Yehoshafat, was reluctant to embark on such a war before consulting Hashem. Achav then assembled some 400 prophets of the idol Ba'al, and these false prophets unanimously advised them to go to war and guaranteed their victory. Yehoshafat suspected them of false prophesying and insisted on hearing from another voice, a true prophet named Michayahu.

While Michayahu, who would eventually offer a dissenting forecast, was being summoned, one of the idolatrous prophets, Tzidkiyahu, sought to reinforce the prophecy of his company by providing virtual fulfillment of this prophecy in the manner of true prophets, who acted in such fashion in order to invest their prophecy with irrevocability. (See Ramban on Bereishet 12:6 and Metzudat David on the passage under discussion.) He therefore demonstrated such fulfillment with artificial horns.

But a false prophecy will not come true even with such reinforcement, and Achav ended up being slain in that war as Heavenly punishment for his sins.

Bava Kama 2b


The Unfriendly Ox

While a man must pay for the damages his ox inflicts upon another animal as a result of his negligence, no such payment is required if the victim was an animal belonging to the Beit Hamikdash (Sanctuary). This exception is derived from the wording of the passage (Shmot 21:35) which speaks of "shor ish" (the ox of a man) goring "shor rayahu" (his fellow's ox), which we understand as meaning the ox of his fellow man, thus excluding an ox belonging to the Sanctuary.

An offbeat interpretation of this passage was offered by a medieval scholar named Ben Zuta, who is quoted by the great biblical commentator Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra. He understood the term "rayahu" in this passage as referring to the victimized ox which is the "friend" of the goring ox (rendering "shor rayahu' as "his fellow ox"). Ibn Ezra sarcastically dismisses this misinterpretation by noting that an ox has no friend except for Ben Zuta!

The proof offered by Ibn Ezra that "rayahu" refers to a fellow man and not a fellow ox is that just as the gorer is described as "the ox of a man," the similar term describing the victim must be understood as "the ox of his friend."

This proof receives reinforcement from Rashi's comment on the words "shor ish" at the beginning of this passage. He explains that this means "the ox of a man" in order to eliminate any misunderstanding that it may mean "the ox goring a man." Just as the Torah combines the words "ox" and "man" to describe the relationship between the gorer and its owner, so does the ensuing combination of "ox" and "friend" describe the relationship between the victim and its owner — and not between one ox and another..

Bava Kama 6b


General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman
Production Design: Shimon Young


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