Bava Kamma 37b (לז:) — the Talmud in English

A. If

it gored

an ox, an ox, and an ox [

three oxen one after another], and then again gored

a donkey and a camel, what is the halakha? Is it deemed habituated to gore oxen בלבד, like an ox that gored three oxen, which is habituated only with regard to oxen, or perhaps its status is like that of one that gored three different species one after another, in which case it is habituated with regard to all species?

Is it deemed a habitual gorer only with regard to oxen, like the law of one that gores three oxen, which is a habitual gorer only with regard to oxen, or perhaps its law is like that of one that gored three species one after the other, in which case it is a habitual gorer with regard to all species?

The sides of the uncertainty are:

Does

this last ox, we assign it to the category of the oxen—

that is, should the third ox be combined with the two oxen before it, since they are of the same species, leaving the donkey and camel that follow standing by themselves—and if so,

it is still only with regard to oxen that it became habituated;

with regard to other species it did not become habituated [

it became habituated only with regard to oxen and not to other species], since it was habituated with regard to the other species only twice.

Or perhaps this last ox, we assign it to the donkey and camel [

perhaps the third ox is combined with the donkey and camel that follow it],

and

if so,

it became habituated with regard to all species [

it became habituated with regard to all species], as in the case of an ox that gored three species, which becomes habituated with regard to all species. The members of the academy further raised this uncertainty in a case where the three oxen were at the end:

B. If it gored

a donkey and a camel, an ox and an ox, and an ox, what is the halakha?

The sides of the uncertainty are:

This first ox [

that is, the first of the three oxen]

we assign to the donkey and camel [

it joins the donkey and camel before it],

and it became habituated with regard to all species [

and it became habituated with regard to all species].

Or perhaps,

it is proper that the first ox

be assigned to the oxen

that follow it

and be assigned to them [

to join it with the oxen that follow it], since they are of the same species,

and it is still

only with regard to oxen that it became habituated,

with regard to another species it did not become habituated [

it became habituated only with regard to oxen and not to other species].

The members of the academy further raised these two uncertainties with regard to becoming habituated for Shabbat:

c. If it gored on

Shabbat,

and on

Shabbat

the following week,

and

on

Shabbat

the week after that, and afterward it gored on

Sunday and

on

Monday, what is the halakha?

Is it deemed habituated only with regard to Shabbat, as in the case of one that gored on three consecutive Shabbatot, or perhaps it becomes habituated with regard to all days, as in the case of an ox that gored on Shabbat, Sunday, and Monday? The sides of the uncertainty are:

This last Shabbat,

is it

assigned to Shabbat—that is, do we combine the last Shabbat with the two Shabbatot before it, since the two Shabbatot are the same day of the week—

whether we join the last Shabbat to the two Shabbatot before it, since the two Shabbatot are the same day,

and still

only

with regard to Shabbat did it become habituated,

but

with regard to the weekdays it did not become habituated [

and consequently it became habituated only with regard to Shabbatot]?

Or perhaps it is assigned to Sunday and Monday

that follow it

and assigned to them [

we combine the Shabbat with the Sunday and Monday that follow it],

and it became habituated with regard to all days [

and consequently it is habituated with regard to every day].

And they further raised another uncertainty:

d. If it gored

on Thursday, on Friday, and on Shabbat, Shabbat, and Shabbat, what is the halakha?

The sides of the uncertainty are:

Is

the first Shabbat assigned to Thursday and Friday [

we combine the first Shabbat with the Thursday and Friday preceding it],

and

if so,

it became habituated with regard to all days [

it became habituated with regard to every day]?

Or perhaps: this first Shabbat is assigned to the Shabbatot [

the first Shabbat is combined with the Shabbatot that follow it], since they are all the same day of the week,

and

if so,

with regard to Shabbatot

only

did it become habituated.

And we conclude with regard to all four uncertainties:

teyku!

The Gemara now compares the establishment of an ox’s pattern of habituation with the establishment of a woman’s pattern of menstruation, as will be explained below.

a. An ox that gores three times consecutively on a particular day of the month becomes habituated only with regard to that day of the month on which it gored all three times.

b. A woman from whose source of blood [the womb] blood emerges becomes impure with the impurity of nidda.

It is characteristic of women to see menstrual blood in a monthly cycle.

Sometimes the cycle is fixed to a particular day of the month, or to a fixed interval of a certain number of days between sightings; sometimes the cycle is not fixed.

The establishment of a cycle for a particular day of the month, or for a particular interval between sightings, is called “establishing a veset.” The Gemara here compares the establishment of a woman’s veset for seeing blood to the pattern of goring established by an ox that has become habituated.

The establishment of a veset for a woman has several halakhic implications.

One of them is that she is forbidden to her husband at the time of her veset, even if she has not yet seen menstrual blood.

The second concerns the principle of “she need reckon only from the moment,” as will be explained below:

The blood that emerges from the source of her blood renders the woman impure from the moment it leaves the womb and enters the corridor [from which the blood emerges outside]. Therefore, the woman becomes impure with the impurity of nidda even before she sees the blood emerging from her body. At times the blood remains in the corridor for some time before emerging, with the result that the woman becomes impure before she is aware of her impurity.

By Torah law, a pure woman need not be concerned that menstrual blood may have emerged from the source of her blood into the corridor and that she may therefore be impure, since we establish her presumptive status as one of purity.

Even if she saw menstrual blood, we need not be concerned that the blood emerged into the corridor before the time she saw it and rendered impure all pure items with which she came into contact from that earlier time. As stated, we establish her on the presumption of purity until the time the blood left the body and she saw it. However, the Sages imposed stringency, rendering impure retroactively all pure items with which a woman who saw blood came into contact from the time she last examined herself and found herself pure, or retroactively for twenty-four hours before the time she saw the blood.

When does this statement—that the Sages decreed retroactive impurity of “from one time to the next” in the case of nidda—apply? To a woman who has no established veset for seeing blood. But a woman who has an established veset need not be concerned about the pure items with which she came into contact retroactively before the time she saw the blood; rather, “she need reckon only from the moment,” and she becomes impure only from the time she saw the blood, since she saw it at the time established as her veset.

How does a woman establish a veset for seeing blood?

A woman who sees menstrual blood three consecutive times, one after another, on a particular day of the month establishes a veset for that day. From then on, she is forbidden to her husband at that time even if she does not see blood then. Likewise, we assume that she is accustomed to seeing blood specifically on that day and not on another day.

Accordingly, if she sees blood on this day, we say, “She need reckon only from the moment.” We do not fear that the blood emerged from the source into the corridor a day or two before this date and remained there, such that she had already become impure earlier. Rather, we assume that she saw it only at the time when she is accustomed to see it.

If

an ox gored on the ninth day"

and on the seventeenth day"

of this month, and on the twenty-seventh day"

of this month,

this law depends on

a dispute between Rav and Shmuel,

who disagreed in a similar case concerning the vesetot of a woman with nidda.

As it was stated: A woman who

A woman

saw blood on

the

ninth day"

and

seventeenth day"

of this month, and on the twenty-

seventh day of this month:

Rav said: She established a veset

to see each month with an interval of one day, meaning that in the following month she is expected to see on the eighteenth day, and in the month after that on the nineteenth day, and so on.

And Shmuel said:

This is not an established veset, since there was an advance of one day only twice. Therefore, she does not establish a veset to advance one day each month

until she advances three times.

That is, until she also sees on the eighteenth day of the following month, at which point her veset will be established for the subsequent month on the nineteenth day.

The same law applies to an ox that has become habituated: according to Rav, the ox is habituated to advance by one day each month. According to Shmuel, however, it is not habituated to advance by one day until after the fourth time that it advances.

Rava said: If

an ox

heard

the

sound of a shofar and gored,

and again it heard

the sound of a shofar and gored,

and again it heard

the sound of a shofar and gored,

then

it becomes habituated with regard to shofarot,

so that every time it hears the sound of a shofar, it is habituated to gore.

We challenge this: This matter is

obvious,

since it is evident from three occurrences that the sounding of the shofar causes it to gore. Why, then, was it necessary for Rava to teach us this?!

And we answer: There is a novelty in Rava’s statement, since one might have distinguished between the establishment of an ordinary pattern of habituation and the establishment of a pattern of habituation associated with hearing a shofar.

For

lest you say,

I might have said that the first goring, which occurred because of the sounding of

this first shofar,

does not prove anything about the ox’s tendency to gore because of the sound of a shofar that it hears. Rather,

it was merely a one-time nightmare that seized it.

That is, the first sounding caused it a nightmare—a sudden fright caused by fear—and it gored only because of that nightmare. But this goring does not combine with the other two gorings to prove that this ox is “accustomed” to goring because of the sound of a shofar and has become habituated to do so. Only if there are three additional gorings, besides the first goring, does the ox become habituated to gore in response to the sound of a shofar.

Therefore

Rava teaches us that the first goring also joins the two subsequent gorings, and together they are considered three gorings, on account of which the ox becomes an “ox forewarned to gore because it hears the sound of a shofar.”

Rava teaches us that the first goring also joins the two subsequent gorings, and together they are considered three gorings on account of which it becomes an “ox forewarned to gore because of hearing the sound of a shofar.”

Mishna:

In the passage concerning a harmless ox, it is written [Exodus 21:35]: “When one man’s ox injures another’s ox and it dies, they shall sell the living ox and divide its money, and they shall also divide the dead one.” Since it says there “another’s ox,” we learn from this to exclude the ox of a gentile, who is not included as another’s fellow, whether his ox gores our ox or whether his ox is gored by our ox. The same law applies to an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, which is not considered the ox of “another’s fellow”.

And in the passage concerning a forewarned ox, it is written [Exodus 21:36]: “Or it became known that the ox was a goring ox from yesterday and the day before, but its owner did not guard it; he shall surely pay an ox in place of the ox, and the dead one shall be his.” This is the passage concerning a forewarned ox, in which “another’s fellow” is not stated".

An ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, and an

ox

belonging to the Temple treasury that gored an ordinary person’s ox,

whether the ox was harmless or whether the ox was forewarned,

is exempt

from payment—

because

it is stated

in the passage concerning damage caused by goring,

“another’s fellow,”

and the verse excludes “another’s fellow,”

but not an ox belonging to the Temple treasury.

An Israelite’s ox that gored a gentile’s ox,

whether the ox was harmless or whether the ox was forewarned, the Israelite

is exempt

from paying the gentile.

And

if an ox

belonging to a gentile gored an Israelite’s ox, whether

the ox was

harmless,

or

whether

the ox was

forewarned,

the gentile

pays full damages

to the Israelite. And in the Gemara below, on folio 38a, the reason for the distinction between an ox belonging to the Temple treasury and a gentile’s ox will be explained, despite the fact that neither is included in “another’s fellow”.

Gemara:

We learned in the Mishna: An ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, and an ox belonging to the Temple treasury that gored an ordinary person’s ox, is exempt:

And the Gemara explains:

The Mishna,

our Mishna, which exempts an ordinary person from paying the Temple treasury, is

not in accordance with Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya.

As he obligates an ordinary person, even when the ox was harmless, to pay full damages to the Temple treasury.

As it was taught in a beraita: An ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, and an ox belonging to the Temple treasury that gored an ordinary person’s ox, is exempt, as it is stated

“another’s fellow”

but not an ox belonging to the Temple treasury,

and this is the view of the tanna of our Mishna.

Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya says: An ox belonging to the Temple treasury that gored an ordinary person’s ox

is indeed

exempt.

But

an

ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, whether harmless or forewarned, pays full damages.

They said,

the members of the academy raised the following objection:

What does Rabbi Shimon

ben Menasya hold!?

In either event, this is difficult:

If

Rabbi Shimon holds that

“another’s fellow”

is precise,

then

even an ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury should be exempt

[even an ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury should be exempt]!?

And if

Rabbi Shimon holds that

“another’s fellow”

is not precise,

then

even

an ox

belonging to the Temple treasury, when it gores

an ordinary person’s

ox, should be liable

[even an ox belonging to the Temple treasury that gored an ordinary person’s ox should be liable].

And if you would say

to resolve this, that

Rabbi Shimon always holds

ben Menasya that

“another’s fellow”

is precise,

and we have no source to include property belonging to the Temple treasury so that it should be liable to an ordinary person, and therefore the Temple treasury is exempt from payment.

However,

an

ordinary person’s ox, when it gores an ox belonging to the Temple treasury,

even though it is not included in the Torah’s passage concerning damages, which deals only with the ox of another’s fellow, nevertheless,

this is the reason it is liable: because he derives it

the Temple treasury

by means of a kal va-chomer from an ordinary person

[we should obligate one who damages property belonging to the Temple treasury by means of a kal va-chomer from one who damages an ordinary person’s property]:

And just as

an ox belonging to

an ordinary person that gored

an ox

belonging to an ordinary person

is

liable,

when it gores

an ordinary person’s ox, the ox

belonging to the Temple treasury should certainly be liable!

This too cannot be said.

For it is an established principle for us that

“the subject derived through the inference can be no more stringent than the subject from which it is derived.”

[It is not possible for the law of the subject derived through a kal va-chomer to be more stringent than that of the subject from which it is derived; rather, it is sufficient that it be like it], and if so:

In that case,

regarding an ordinary person’s ox that gored an ordinary person’s ox, if the ox was

harmless, it pays half-damages

only.

Here,

regarding an ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, which is derived by a kal va-chomer from an ox that gored an ordinary person’s ox,

also,

if it was harmless,

half-damages

only should it pay.

If so, how could Rabbi Shimon say that even a harmless ox pays full damages to the Temple treasury!?

Rather, Reish Lakish said,

explaining the reasoning of Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya, who obligates an ordinary person’s ox that gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury, whether harmless or forewarned, to pay full damages:

All

whether the ox gored an ordinary person’s ox or whether it gored an ox belonging to the Temple treasury,

were included in full damages

of a forewarned ox. That is, since “another’s fellow” was not stated at all in the passage concerning a forewarned ox, everyone was included in the liability of that passage, both the goring of an ordinary person’s ox and the goring of an ox belonging to the Temple treasury—

and

when the verse specified

“another’s fellow”

with regard to a harmless ox,

we should say that the intention of the verse was not to exempt one who damages an ox belonging to the Temple treasury; on the contrary, the verse came to be stringent, teaching you that only with regard to

“another’s fellow”

does it

say

that a harmless ox pays half-damages,

for only with regard to an ox belonging to “another’s fellow” was a harmless ox excluded from paying full damages.

And from this

you learn

that

with regard to

the Temple treasury, whether harmless or forewarned, it pays full damages.

And the necessity for this interpretation is as follows: