One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת מִקְוָאוֹת · הִלְכוֹת נִזְקֵי מָמוֹן
Immersion Pools 11 · Damages to Property 1-2
Sefer Taharah closes, Sefer Nezikin opens · Hands and Intent • Mu'ad and Tam • The Force of the Force
40
Se'ah: the only water
that immerses hands or vessels
3
Categories of damage:
goring, eating, treading
5
Species forewarned
from birth, even tame
1/4
Paid when the hoof
kicked the stone on purpose
Mikvaot 11Hands, Sequence, and the Heart
- Only a real mikveh immerses a part. Hands that must be immersed need a valid mikveh of 40 se'ah, because only where a person immerses his body may he immerse vessels keilim and hands. Hands that merely need washing may not be dipped at all: drawn water must be poured onto them from a container by human effort. (11:1)
- The first water is already impure. It contracted impurity from the hands, so a loaf of terumah falling into it becomes impure, while the same loaf falling into the second water does not. Pour both waters into one place and the loaf is impure again. The second washing does not purify, it only rinses off the first. (11:3)
- Everything runs to the joint. Water that passed beyond the joint and returned to the hand makes it impure, since the second water does not purify what lies past the joint. Wash one hand and then both together and both are impure; rub the washed hand on the unwashed one and it is ruined, on your head or the wall and it is clean. (11:4-5)
- The measures. A revi'it for each person's first washing and no less; for the second washing two share a revi'it, half a log does three or four, and from a log even a hundred may wash. Anything that intervenes for the whole body intervenes for the hands, and both hands must be rubbed together. (11:2, 11:8)
RememberThe last word of Sefer Taharah: impurity is not mud or filth, so immersion is a chok that requires the intent of the heart, and one who immersed without meaning to become pure is as though he never immersed.
Nizkei Mamon 1Mu'ad, Tam, and Whose Ground It Was
- Your property, your payment. Whatever a person's living animal damages, he pays, since the damage was done by his property; the verse names an ox only because an ox was common, and the law is the same for any animal, beast or fowl. (1:1)
- Natural act, full damages. Deviation, half. Eating what suits it or breaking underfoot while walking costs the full loss, collected from his choicest land. Goring or biting costs half, and that half is exacted only from the body of the animal that did it, so a cheap ox that kills an expensive one is simply handed over. (1:2-3, 1:7)
- Forewarned by nature or by habit. Mu'ad is what the animal does by nature; tam is a deviation. Five deviations can be learned into a habit: goring, butting, biting, lying on large vessels, kicking. Wolf, lion, bear, tiger and leopard are mu'ad from birth even domesticated, as is a biting snake. (1:4-6)
- Liability has a geography. He pays only where the animal entered the damaged party's domain; where the damaged party entered his, nothing is owed. In the street, or a courtyard the two set aside for both produce and animals, there is no payment for eating or treading, but goring and its derivatives are paid anyway. A courtyard set aside for produce alone makes him liable even for eating and treading. (1:7-9)
RememberThree categories and their derivatives: goring covers butting, biting, lying upon and kicking; eating covers scratching on a wall and soiling produce for its own benefit; treading covers hair, tail, saddle, bit, bell, a donkey's load and a calf's cart.
Nizkei Mamon 2Pebbles, Fines, and Small Disasters
- Stones from under the hoof: half. An animal walking normally in another's domain that propels pebbles tz'rurot which break vessels costs half the damage, taken from his choicest property, and the Rambam says plainly this is a law of the Oral Tradition. Treads on one vessel and a shard breaks a second: full for the first, half for the second. (2:2-4)
- A kick makes it a quarter. Where the animal kicked the ground deliberately in a private domain, only a fourth is paid, since it was never settled whether kicking counts as a deviation; if the damaged party seized half, it is not taken back. In the public domain a deliberate kick costs nothing, though a seized quarter stays seized. (2:5-6)
- Fines need witnesses. Paying the loss itself is a monetary obligation like a loan. Paying more or less than the loss, the thief's double or the goring ox's half, is a fine, and a fine rests on the testimony of witnesses alone, so a man who admits to one is absolved of it. (2:7-8)
- The parade of small disasters. A rooster crowing into a jar: full for spices inside, half for the glass; an empty jar is a deviation. A string tied to its leg by a person: half, and if the string has an owner he pays, since it is a pit that moves. A goat jumping down from a roof: full, and full even if it fell, because climbing up was negligence. A dog carrying an ember into a grain heap: full for the cake and the spot, half for the heap, unless the fire was left unguarded. (2:9-18)
RememberWhenever a person is negligent at the outset, he is liable for damage that arrives afterward through forces beyond his control. The ladder decides the case, not the fall.