One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת רוֹצֵחַ וּשְׁמִירַת נֶפֶשׁ
Murderer and the Preservation of Life 11-13
Sefer Nezikin · The treatise and the book close • The guardrail and every danger in your home • Holes, venom and bad advice • The fallen donkey and the enemy
10
Handbreadths: the minimum
height of a roof guardrail
266⅔
Cubits: the distance that
counts as an encounter
100
Times you reload
if it keeps falling
62
Chapters in Sefer Nezikin,
completed today
Rotze'ach 11The Guardrail and the Uncovered Jug
- A fence for where people live. It is a positive commandment to build a guardrail for a roof. It applies to a dwelling, not a warehouse or a cattle barn, and not to a structure under four cubits by four. A house owned by partners needs one. Synagogues and houses of study are excluded, since the verse says your roof and they are not dwellings. (11:1-2)
- Ten handbreadths, and strong. The guardrail may be no lower than ten handbreadths, and it must be a partition strong enough for a person to lean on without falling. Leaving the roof open negates the positive commandment and violates do not cause blood to be spilled in your home; there are no lashes, because it involves no deed. (11:3)
- Every danger, not only roofs. A well or cistern in a courtyard needs a ten-handbreadth wall or a cover. It is a positive mitzvah to remove any obstacle that endangers life, from beware for yourself and guard your soul. One who says I will risk my life, what does it matter to others, or I am not careful about these things, receives stripes for rebelliousness. (11:4-5)
- Liquids left uncovered. Water, wine (even diluted or souring), milk, honey and brine left uncovered are forbidden lest a snake drank from them, as are crushed garlic and a cut watermelon. Boiled wine, wine within three days of pressing, steaming liquids and liquids into which drops fall continuously are exempt. Sleeping beside the jug does not help, since crawling animals do not fear sleeping men. (11:6-11)
- Nine drank, the tenth may not. A jug left uncovered stays forbidden even after nine people drank safely, since venom may sink, rise or hang in the middle, and filtering does not help. A flowing stream is exempt. Uncovered water may not be poured into the street, used for mortar, washing or watering an animal, though it may be given to a cat; dough kneaded with it is burned, even terumah. (11:12-16)
RememberLeaving a danger in place is not a deed, so there are no lashes. It is still called spilling blood in your home.
Rotze'ach 12Holes, Venom and the Stumbling Block
- Bitten meat and the roasting test. An animal or bird bitten by a snake, or that ate a poison deadly to people while the poison is unchanged in it, may not be eaten. A bird found with its feet cut off is not taref but must be checked first, by roasting it and seeing whether the meat breaks apart. (12:1)
- Fruit with holes. Figs, grapes, squash, melons and cucumbers with holes are forbidden, large or small, attached or picked, as long as they are moist. Even if one saw a bird or a rat making the holes, they stay forbidden, since it may have used an existing hole. Grapes and figs whose stems were pulled are not considered uncovered. (12:2-3)
- Small habits that kill. No coins in the mouth, no hand under the armpit, no cooked dish under the couch you recline on, no knife standing in an etrog or radish, and no walking under a leaning wall, over a shaky bridge or into a ruin. Further rulings set precautions for travel and treatment in the dangerous conditions of the Rambam's time. (12:4-11)
- Arms and the robber. Weapons and instruments of harm may not be sold to those who endanger the public, nor sharpened for them, nor sold to someone who will resell to them. A shield may be sold, since it only defends, and the soldiers of the country who protect its inhabitants may be supplied. Whatever may not be sold to such buyers may not be sold to a Jewish robber. (12:12-14)
- The blind man is anyone who cannot see. Misleading someone who is blind in a matter, giving him bad advice, or strengthening a transgressor violates do not place a stumbling block before the blind. When a person asks your advice, give him proper counsel. (12:14-15)
RememberA bird at the hole does not clear the fruit; it may have only widened what was already there.
Rotze'ach 13The Fallen Donkey
- Unload, then reload. One who meets a traveler whose animal fell under its load, fair or excessive, must unload it, and may not then leave him in a panic but must help him raise the animal and reload. Leaving him violates the negative commandment of seeing and concealing yourself. (13:1-2)
- Who is exempt, and how long it lasts. A priest does not become impure in a cemetery for it. An elder for whom it is undignified is exempt, by the rule that one does for another what one would do for one's own; the pious help even if they are a great nasi. If it falls again, help again, even 100 times, and accompany it for a parsah unless told otherwise. (13:3-5)
- Encounter, price and presence. The duty begins within 266 2/3 cubits. Unloading is a Torah mitzvah done without charge; reloading and the escort may be paid. The mitzvah applies even when the owner is absent, but an owner who stands aside and says you have the mitzvah, do it, frees the passerby. (13:6-8)
- Who goes first. In a caravan no one passes a donkey with shaky legs until it falls. On a narrow way the laden animal precedes the ridden, and the ridden precedes the empty; ships in a strait and camels on a pass give way to cargo, and the one near its port yields to the one far from it. Equals make a settlement, judge your colleague with righteousness. (13:10-12)
- The enemy first. Facing one animal to unload and another to reload, unload first for the animal's suffering, unless the reloading is for an enemy and the unloading for a friend: then help the enemy first, to subdue the evil inclination. The enemy is a Jew who persisted in sin after private rebuke, and even so one helps him lest he come to danger, for God desires that the wicked return and live. (13:13-14)
RememberThe book of damages ends with a load lifted for an enemy, free for the unloading, before anyone has apologized.