The Ransom That Will Not Divide

About This Talk

These three chapters carry the law of the goring animal out of arithmetic and into atonement. Chapter 9 is about not knowing: half damages may be taken from a pregnant animal's offspring, since the calf counts as part of its mother's body, while a chicken's eggs are separate and distinct from it and yield nothing; a calf found standing beside the cow that gored, with no proof she was carrying it at the time, is untouchable, and a stillborn calf beside a cow that was gored, with no proof the blow caused it, leaves payment for the cow alone, because whoever wishes to expropriate money from his colleague brings the proof. Damage to a miscarrying cow is measured by her worth pregnant and healthy against her worth now with the body of the fetus, and where cow and calf had different owners the lost fat, the lost bulk and the carcass are split between them. Where one ox pursued another and its owner claims not to know whether a rock did the damage, a mu'ad's owner swears a rabbinic oath that he does not know and a tam's owner does not even swear, since half damages are a fine and an admission to a fine with no witnesses carries no liability. Two oxen of two owners with no identification leave neither liable; two of one man's oxen oblige him from the body of the cheaper, and nothing at all if that one has died or been lost, while witnesses who saw that one of his animals did it bind him to what he admits, with a claim for wheat answered by an admission of barley as the model. The chapter closes with the victim who seizes the goring animal becoming a paid watchman over it, the serial gorer whose earlier victims become partners in its body, and the offsets when two animals injure each other. Chapter 10 turns to an animal that kills a person: any animal, beast or fowl is stoned, tam or mu'ad, wherever it happened, and the only thing forewarning adds is kofer, the atonement payment. An animal becomes forewarned to kill by killing three gentiles, three who were t'refah, three animals, by killing and fleeing three times, or by three killings in which witnesses recognized the owner but not which animal, since he was warned that something in his herd kills and should have guarded all of them. The verse that its owner shall also be put to death means death at the hand of Heaven, the payment pardons him, and the court seizes his property for it against his will; two partners each pay a complete kofer because each requires a full measure of atonement; guardians pay damages and never kofer, since those they stand in for are not people who require atonement; an ownerless animal is tried and stoned with no one to pardon; and the animal of an owner who is t'refah is not killed, because the verse pairs the owner's death with the animal's and a man already as dead cannot be put to death. A dog set on a man is not stoned and a snake is, since the snake releases its venom on its own volition, which is also why the man who used it is not executed by a court; an animal aiming at an animal that kills a man is not stoned, though a forewarned animal's owner pays even for an unintended death, including the one known for leaping into pits and the one known for toppling walls, tested by whether it keeps rubbing after the wall falls; and no kofer is owed where the animal kills within the owner's own domain, so a man who enters uninvited even to collect a debt, or who called at the gate and was answered yes, leaves the owner exempt, while an animal that treads on a child in someone else's courtyard obliges him. Chapter 11 fixes the sum and follows the condemned animal: the judges assess what the person killed was worth, a servant is a flat thirty selaim whether worth a hundred maneh or one dinar, a servant lacking only his bill of release carries no fine, and the payment goes to the heirs of the deceased, which for a woman means her heirs and not her husband, with half of a half-freed person's fine owed into an empty hand. An animal that gores a pregnant woman pays nothing for the fetus even when forewarned, since that obligation comes from a verse about men who were fighting, while a pregnant maidservant's fetus is paid for like a pregnant donkey's. A tam that killed and then damaged owes nothing, since its body is forbidden; a mu'ad's damages are assessed before sentence, or collected from the animal's hired labor where sentence came first; after sentence consecration, sale, renunciation and a watchman's return are all void and the meat forbidden; a sentenced animal mixed into a thousand condemns all thousand, because a living creature is never nullified in a majority, while one mixed in before sentence leaves all of them exempt, since judgment must be concluded in the animal's presence. A killing cow's calf shares her status, a calf conceived afterwards is permitted if born before sentence and forbidden if born after, and when the condemning witnesses are exposed as liars whoever seizes the animal acquires it, because the owner had despaired, except where they falsely accused him of sinning with it, since he knew the truth and never gave it up.