We Learn Them From Pit (article preview)

Here is a preview of this coming week’s Jewish Link article (with the full article for paid subscribers). It discusses a pivotal sugya in Bava Kamma 28, where Rav and Shmuel disagree, the Stamma presents a resolution in which Rav doesn’t consider an owned damager to be Pit, and then throughout the masechet, the Stamma uses that Rav / Shmuel distinction to ask questions on the statement of named Amoraim, particularly Rava and his students. “How does this work with [the Stamma’s reinterpreted version of] Rav? Rather, we must reinterpret what this named Amora says.” This despite our ruling like Shmuel over Rav in this. I explore the sugyot to show this, and suggest an alternative explanation.

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A brayta on Bava Kamma 31a discusses a case of potters or glassware merchants walking behind one another. The first one stumbled and fell, the second stumbled over the first, and the third stumbled over the second. The first potter is liable for the damages to the second, and the second to the third. However, if the second and third both fell because of the first, only the first is liable.

Rava elaborates on the brayta’s meaning, and a reformulation of Rava’s intent is: the first potter is liable for the damages to the second’s body or property, while the second is only liable for damages to the third’s body, not to his property. The reasoning is that the second person is effectively a Pit, and a Pit doesn’t pay for damage to vessels. The Gemara then objects that this works according to Shmuel, who holds that all stumbling blocks are learned from Pit. However, Rav restricts this to items declared hefker, ownerless (but otherwise they would be Ox, for which he would be liable even for vessels). The Gemara then reverts to its first interpretation of Rava interpretation, one defended by named Amoraim rather than presented anonymously.

Pivotal Sugya

The Rav vs. Shmuel dispute appears in Bava Kamma 28. In the Mishnah, Reuven’s jug broke in the public domain. If Shimon slipped on the water and was injured, or was injured by the broken shards, the jug’s owner is liable. Rabbi Yehuda says Reuven is only liable if he acted with intent.