Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Exodo 21:35

1. There are four primary causes of injury: the ox and the pit and the crop-destroying beast and fire. 2. [The distinctive feature of] the ox is not like [that of] the crop-destroying beast, nor is [the distinctive feature of] either of these, which are alive, like [that of] fire, which is not alive; nor is [the distinctive feature of] any of these, whose way it is to go forth and do injury, like [that of] the pit, whose way it is not to go forth and do injury. 3. What they have in common is that it is their way to do injury and that you are responsible for caring over them; and if one of them did injury whoever [is responsible] for the injury must make restitution [to the damaged party] with the best of his land. The four causes of injury mentioned in the first clause mishnah are all derived from the Torah: the ox (Exodus 21:35-36), the pit (Exodus 21:33-34), the crop-destroying beast (Exodus 22:4) and fire (Exodus 22:5). The mishnah then raises a question generally asked in midrashic texts (texts that explain the Torah): why does the Torah need to mention all four types of injury? In other words, why couldn’t the Torah have mentioned one, two or three primary causes of injury, from which we would have learned the rest? The Rabbis believed that no law in the Torah was superfluous and therefore each must come to teach us something that we could not have learned from the other laws. The mishnah therefore explains that each “cause of injury” has its unique characteristic and therefore we would not have been able to derive the laws of the other causes of damages without all four examples in the Torah. Note how the mishnah is both dependent on, yet independent from the Torah. This is typical of Jewish oral Torah; it explains the Torah yet it can usually be understood on its own. Questions for further thought:  What type of injury does an ox cause? What therefore is the difference between an ox and a crop-destroying beast?  The Mishnah tells you things that you are obligated to watch and that if they are yours and they injure you will have to pay the damaged party. Is there anything you can already imagine for which a person will not be obligated if it causes damage? (We will learn the answers to these questions as we go on, but it is worthwhile to start thinking of them now).

Ochsen. קרן, Exod. 21, 35—36; so Jerusch. — תולדות davon sind alle Beschädigungen, die durch eine direkt zum Schaden vom Tiere gemachte willkürliche Bewegung verübt werden („wo das Tier mit Absicht geschadet hat,“ sagt der Talmud), z. B. Ausstossen, Beissen u. dgl. Nach dem T. Babli spricht die Mischna hier vom Fuss-Schaden, (רגל, d. h. was der Ochs beim Gehen mit dem Fusse zertritt); dies ist in den Worten ושלח את בעירה Exod. 22, 4 angedeutet. Die תולדות von רגל sind alle Schäden, die ein Tier im gewöhnlichen Gange anrichtet, z. B., wenn es im Gehen mit dem Horn oder mit einer auf ihm befindlichen Last etwas beschädigt.

נכסים שאין בהם מעילה – and upon which property I am liable to pay if I caused damage. On those possessions that lack religious sacrilege, such as property which is not sanctified to the Temple, for if I damaged properties of the Holy things dedicated to the Temple, I am not liable to pay, as it is written, (Exodus 21:35): “[When a man’s ox injures] his neighbor’s ox [and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its price; they shall also divide the dead animal],” and not the ox that belongs to the Temple. And the same law applies to all the rest of damages.

Rather - for the following reason it was necessary to state [the additional proof-texts]: one might have said that Scripture only differentiates between an innocuous ox and a forewarned ox -- in that regarding an innocuous ox it is written "they shall divide its price" [Exodus 21:35] and regarding a forewarned one it is written "that person must restore ox for ox" [Exodus 21:36], which means that he must pay full damages -- that refers only to a case where a detached horn was used; if, for example, the animal held the horn between its teeth and gored with it. [Only] in that case would the innocuous ox not pay whole damages, because this is not its usual behavior, and it was not the owners' responsibility to protect against such a thing.