WEEKLY DAFootnotes #1
Bava Kama 30-36; Issue #5
Week of 7-13 Elul 5761 / August 26 - September 1, 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 Pattern of Violence
“Should a man cause a wound to his fellow man...” is how the Torah introduces the obligation of compensation for causing physical damage to another. (Vayikra 24.19)
Our Sages infer from this text that the sort of compensation required when a man strikes his fellow man is not the same as when a man’s animal hurts another man. When the assault is carried out by the man himself, he is obligated to compensate his victim for depreciation, pain, medical expenses, unemployment and embarrassment. But when his responsibility is limited to negligence in guarding his animal, he is only required to pay for depreciation. It is interesting to note that this differentiation is thus signaled in a chapter of the Torah immediately following the incident of the blasphemer. A Jew had vented his anger towards Heaven by pronouncing a curse (ibid. 24:14) and was arrested for his crime. In response to Moshe’s query as to what his punishment should be came the Divine command to execute him. This is followed by a command to relay to the Children of Israel a list of the punishments to be meted out to offenders, beginning with blasphemy and concluding with damage done to man and animal, which also includes the above mentioned passage.
Perhaps there is a profound lesson in the connection thus made between violence towards Heaven in the form of a curse and violence towards humans and their property. One approach may be that the potential blasphemer is likely to look upon his intended curse as a purely theological offense which does not impair his ability to be a perfectly moral person in his human relations. He is therefore warned that rejection of a Divine authority which legislates human relations inevitably leads to the anarchy and irresponsibility which breeds violence and negligence.
Another perspective can be formed on the basis of what Rambam writes (Laws of Theft and Lost Objects 1:11) that one who transgresses the Torah prohibition against coveting another’s property can easily degenerate into theft and even murder. The same pattern of escalation is perhaps indicated in this ladder of violence from negligence all the way up to the ultimate violence of blasphemy.
The gradation of violence is expressed in the different degrees of punishment and that is why it is here that there must be indicated the distinction between the damage caused to another man by man himself or by his animal.
Bava Kama 33a
Sabbath Bride and Groom
“Lecha dodi likrat kallah.”Those beautiful lyrics of the great kabbalist scholar of Tsefat, Rabbi Shlomo Alkavetz, with which Jews in synagogues throughout the world welcome the Sabbath Queen have their source in our gemara. The Sage Issi ben Yehuda holds the one running in the public thoroughfare responsible for damage caused to the one who walks when they accidentally collide because he has no right to be running. But even he concedes that if such an accident takes place at the sunset beginning of Sabbath, the runner is exempt from payment since he has a right to rush to usher in the holy day.
To illustrate this point the practices of two sages on the Sabbath eve are cited. Rabbi Chanina would declare “Let us go forth towards the bride of the King,” while Rabbi Yannai would declare “Come to me, oh bride, come to me oh bride.”
These two joyous declarations form the beginning and the end of the aforementioned song with which we welcome the Sabbath. Maharsha explains how they differ in approach. Both of them are based on the Midrashic concept that when Shabbat complained to the Creator that each of the other six days of the week was paired with another, it was the “odd woman out” with no mate, the Divine response was that the Jewish People would be its mate. We are the royal groom, for all Jews are princes, the Shabbat is the bride, and the wedding takes place with the onset of the day of rest.
It is the custom of the groom to step towards the bride as Rashi explains a passage (Devarim 33:2) describing Hashem coming towards his Chosen People at Sinai to give them the Torah in the manner of a groom approaching the bride. This is what Rabbi Chanina was enacting, while Rabbi Yannai focused on the dual invitation of the groom. “Come to me,” he called to his Sabbath bride as every bride enters the chuppa for the purpose of marriage and “Come to me” to enter the home of her beloved mate.
Bava Kama 32b
![[Text]](/yomifoot/../image/ascii.gif){kind=small}
Explanation
of these symbols The Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE) of Ohr Somayach offers summer and winter programs in Israel that attract hundreds of university students from around the world for 3 to 8 weeks of study and touring.
Copyright © 2001 Ohr Somayach International.
Send us feedback. Dedication opportunities are available for Weekly DAFootnotes. Please contact us for details.
