More Discussions for this daf
1. If the Torah would only write Gadish ...... 2. King David's Questions 3. Responsibility of Guardianship in Piku'ach Nefesh
4. Ru'ach Metzuyah 5. If the Torah would only write Gadish ...... 6. Grama b'Nezikin
7. King David's question 8. Torah's Chidush of Gadish being Chayav with Esh 9. Torah's explicit mention of all items by Esh
10. Giving fire to a Katan 11. Mah she'Nehenis 12. Causation is exempt with respect to damages
13. השולח את הבערה ואכלה עצים או אבנים או עפר ברש"י 14. הערות ברש"י לגבי סכסכה אבניו 15. הערה ברש"י לגבי סכסכה אבניו
DAF DISCUSSIONS - BAVA KAMA 60

AS asked:

The Gemara taught: We would think only by Gadish Chayeiv because large loss but thorns only small loss Patur.

Question: Doesn't the Torah value even small items of little value (Pachim Ktanim by Yaakov)? So what was the Gmara Hava Amina?

Thank you!!

AS, NY

The Kollel replies:

Your point is well taken. However, it may be pointed out that the person did not physically destroy, b'Yadayim, the Gadish. He simply lit a fire, which spread by itself to the Gadish. The Torah teaches a Chidush, that even though the fire spreads by itself, we relate to it as though the person who lit the fire personally burned all that the fire reached. (See Gemara 23b, 60b, "Pasach ha'Kasuv b'Nizkei Memono...." A person should be even less responsible to guard his fire than he is to guard his animal, since the fire is not really "his property" in the normal sense of the word, as the Gemara teaches on 22a.) The Torah might have only taught this Chidush, and made the lighter of the fire responsible for damages, if the damages incurred were considerable.

We find a similar concept in the Torah with regard to Shen v'Ayin; if the master bruises his slave and causes him to lose blood etc., he is totally exempt from payment. If the master damages, permanently, one of the "24 ends of limbs" of his slave, the slave must be set free (as compensation).

(We might add that the Chidush of the Torah with regard to fire may be a preventative measure, so as to ensure that people do not burn down each other's fields in their anger, knowing that they will not be responsible to compensate the victim. The Torah need not be concerned, though, that one will burn his neighbors "thorns" out of vengeance, since nobody would "play with fire," and risk damage to his own property, in an attempt to cause such minimal damage to his neighbor.)

By the way, the SHITAH MEKUBETZES points out that the verse had to mention "Kotzim" for another reason, as Rashi in Chumash points out: The Torah is not teaching that one must pay for the Kotzim. Rather, it wanted to teach that the one who lit the fire is responsible even though the fire spread to the Gadish by itself, by way of the Kotzim. (This is the same as the Derasha we cited above, from 23b, that the Torah obligated the person for Nizkei Memono just like Nizkei Gufo.) Our Gemara simply wants to expound the entire Pasuk in a consistent manner (i.e., that the verse is discussing paying for the damage to the Kotzim).

D. Zupnik and M. Kornfeld