No, I am not sure if I agree and I will try and explain why, Bs'd.

(1) You imply that if someone digs a pit in Reshus ha'Rabim he has to pay for the damage he did to Reshus ha'Rabim. I think we have to think more about this. The question is if it is Reshus ha'Rabim that would seem to suggest that it has no owners, so who would one pay?

(2) I want to go a bit further and say a big Chidush that it is not so clear that there exists a prohibition as such to damage Reshus ha'Rabim. See Rashi 53a DH Nafal who writes that if someone digs a pit for his friend the digger is liable, not the friend who told him to dig the Bor, because Ein Shali'ach l'Dvar Aveirah and it is forbidden to ruin Reshus ha'Rabim. The Mishneh la'Melech (Hilchos Rotze'ach 2:2) cites this Rashi as a proof that Ein Shali'ach l'Dvar Aveirah applies also to a d'Rabanan prohibition because he writes it is obvious that there is only a Rabbinical prohibition to ruin Reshus ha'Rabim.

(3) It is true that a lot of Acharonim disagree with the Mishneh la'Melech and maintain that the Isur of ruining Reshus ha'Rabim is d'Oraisa (see the Frankel Rambam Sefer ha'Mafte'ach who cites a few). However it is worth noticing that some of the reasons these Acharonim give when they disagree with the Mishneh la'Melech are rather side reasons. Reb Elchanan Wasserman in Kovetz Shi'urim Bava Basra 22b #76 writes that he transgresses not loving his fellow man as himself. The Meshech Chochmah Vayikra 19:14 writes that he transgresses putting a stumbling block before the blind, because somebody might fall in the pit. The Acharonim do not seem to say that he actually transgresses the prohibition of Mazik. See the first Kehilos Ya'akov in Bava Kama who discusses at length what exactly is the source for the prohibition to damage one's friend's property, but one sees at any rate that there is such a prohibition. In contrast, I argue that there is no prohibition as such to damage Reshus ha'Rabim because it is not owned by anyone.

(4) If I am right, then we might be able to answer another question. The Gemara states above 50b that one may not throw stones into Reshus ha'Rabim. The Tur CM 417 adds on that this is so the public should not trip up on them. The Pischei Choshen Nezikin (8: note 62), by Rav Ya'akov Bloy Shlita, writes that he did not find anyone who explains what the Tur is adding with this comment. According to the above we may be able to understand why the Tur had to say it. The point is that as such there is no prohibition to throw stones into Reshus ha'Rabim because it belongs to you just as much as anyone else. However the reason one must not do it is so that it should not cause damage later to others.

(5) I found a similar idea in the Birkas Avraham above 50b DH u'Lefi (second edition) in the name of Reb Baruch Ber Lebovits who asserts that someone who digs a Bor is no more of a Mazik than someone who buys an ox. When one dug a pit this does not mean that he caused damage because it is possible to watch over the Bor so it should not cause damage. However the person who dug the Bor thereby became the owner of it and the responsibility to guard it is now placed upon him. According to this your question can be answered that if the owner is careful to cover over the Bor safely, he could not be held liable.

(6) I would just like to point out that the Halachah nowadays may be different than in the time of the Gemara. The Rema CM 417:1 writes that Reshus ha'Rabim belongs to the ruler of the city and one follows whatever he gives permission to do. It could be that in the time of the Gemara Reshus ha'Rabim really had no owner (or they did not mind what people did there) but nowadays if someone damages the Reshus ha'Rabim he has to pay a fine to the government. I found a similar idea in the SMA CM 369:12 that the land belongs to the king and he is free to do with it what he likes. See also Gemara above 30a that in the winter months one is allowed to throw out the sewage into Reshus ha'Rabim. However the Aruch ha'Shulchan CM 414:2 writes that this only applies in a place where there is no custom but in a place where the practice is that the streets are clean all year long and are swept up, it is certainly forbidden to litter the streets all year round.

Good Shabbos

Dovid Bloom

1. Rashi in Bava Kama (6a) explains that the difference between winter and summer is that in the summer the street is pleasantly kept, so someone who throws his refuse into the street is ruining the street. In contrast, in the rainy season the streets are anyway dirty, so one who throws waste there does not make them significantly worse.

(Incidentally, it seems that the words of Rashi support the ruling of the Aruch ha'Shulchan that I mentioned earlier. Rashi implies that if something is well kept, one is not allowed to spoil it. Therefore, if the streets are kept clean all year long, it follows that one is forbidden all year to make them dirty.)

2. You make an important point by referring us to Bava Kama 55b and Rashi (DH Ha), that the Torah gives a special Heter to cover over the Bor in a minimal way and does not require one to fill it up with earth. However, the Chidush there is that without this Limud one would have been liable for any damage the Bor causes to other objects, even though it was covered over. We do not see from there that one who does not fill in the pit is liable for the damage he causes to the ground of Reshus ha'Rabim by digging there and ruining public property, as was suggested by the original questioner.

Kol Tuv,

Dovid Bloom

Dear Alex! Shalom u'Vrachah!

This time I am going to stand my ground and justify what I argued last time.

1. According to the din of the Gemara there is no prohibition as such against digging a bor in reshus harabim. The following proof can be given for this. The Gemara above 50b says that one should not throw out stones from one's own domain into the public domain. An account is related concerning somebody who threw out stones from his own reshus into reshus harabim and in the end tripped up on the very stones that he himself had thrown out. There is already a slight implication in the Gemara that the reason one must not throw out the stones is not because of the damage - actual or aesthetic - done to reshus harabim, but rather because somebody might afterwards slip up on them. The reason that it is not prohibited because of the damage done to the reshus harabim is possibly because reshus harabim does not belong to anyone, so no-one can complain about what you did.

2. The above can be strengthened by looking carefully at the words of the Tur Choshen Mishpat 417:1. Tur writes that one may not throw stones or anything else into the public domain so that the public should not be damaged by these items. The Tur's words "so that the public shold not be damaged" appear to be superfluous - why does he need to give a reason why one may not throw stones into reshus harabim? However according to what we wrote above in (1) the answer is clear. There is no prohibition in itself on throwing things into reshus harabim, but the reason one is not allowed to do so is because it might cause damage to others. It follows that if there was no possibility of later damage - for instance if you were able to watch over the potentially dangerous item for 24 hours a day - one could throw what one liked into the street.

3. You might challenge the above on the basis of Rashi 53a end DH Nofal. Rashi writes that if Reuven paid Shimon to dig a bor in reshus harabim, Reuven is liable for what he did, because "Ein Sheliach l'Dvar Aveira" because 'it is forbidden to ruin reshus harabim', so Reuven should not have listened to Shimon who told him to dig the bor, but rather he should have listened to Hash-m who told us not to damage reshus harabim. Rashi's words "It is forbidden to ruin reshus harabim" seem to contradict directly my argument that there is no prohibition on this as such!?

4. I answer this challenge on the basis of Reb Boruch Ber Lebovitz zt'l, cited by Birkas Avrohom above 50b, that when somebody digs a bor in reshus harabim, he did nothing worse than somebody who bought an ox. The act of simply buying an ox is not itself a mazik, but what it means is that from now on you are obliged to be careful about looking after your ox so that it should not damage others. Bor is exactly the same thing :- it is not actually mazik when you dig a bor, but now you have to cover up your bor etc, so that it should not cause damage to passers by. [ According to this it would seem that Reb Boruch Ber understood what Rashi wrote that "it is forbidden to ruin reshus harabim" to mean that the prohibition is not because of the damage done to reshus harabim, but rather that because something potentially dangerous was created in reshus harabim, it will now be very likely that it will not be properly looked after, and in practice will cause damage, so it transpires that the digger ruined reshus harabim by making it into a dangerous place.]

5. According to the above I claim that the very words of Rashi 55b DH Ha which you are trying to explain, actually are a support for my argument. Rashi explains that the special gezeras hakosuv which tells us that is sufficient to do a minimal shemira on the bor, means that even if one covered over the bor a little, this is enough and one is not required to fill up the bor with earth. Alex, you claim that this is only sufficient to remove the hezek of bor but to amend the damage one did to reshus harabim one is obliged to fill up the bor. With respect, this is putting something into Rashi's words that Rashi himself did not say.

6. I argue that one is not required to fill up the bor even in order to amend the damage to reshus harabim that the adam hamazik did. If one covers the bor over, this is sufficient on all grounds. My argument is based on what Reb Boruch Ber says that there is nothing wrong in itself in digging a bor in reshus harabim as long as you look after it properly afterwards. And I claim that there is a proof for Reb Boruch Ber from the simple reading of Rashi's words that there is no obligation at all to fill up the bor.

7. Nowadays, with enviromental consciousness, it might seem rather strange to us to say that there is no prohibition against damaging reshus harabim. However, I think this is not so difficult to understand. We have stressed that if what you do in reshus harabim afterwards cause damage to others this is certainly forbidden. Therefore it would certainly seem that if somebody ejects dirty fumes into the air which make the air dirty and unhealthy for everyone else, the Torah does not permit this. Similarly if because of the waste material a hole is made in the ozone layer and the globe warms up as a result and international weather pattern change, this certainly is very questionable. But to come back to our bor dug in reshus harabim, none of this is happening. It does not damage anyone because it is sufficiently covered over. In addition if somebody does not like the ugly mess, then the protestor himself is entitled to fill in the bor, and the person who dug the bor in the first place could not stop him, because the bor in reshus harabim does not belong to him. See also Rashi 6a DH b'Ymos that if the street is pretty, one is not allowed to ruin it. Therefore if the reshus harabim is well-kept I would agree that one should fill up the bor that one dug there.

Good Shabbos and a big Yeyasher Koach

Dovid Bloom