Take Ten for Talmud
1651BabaBasra17- Introduction to Zoning Laws
A very good morning and we are off of Teach 613. We welcome you to take 10-10 foot downward. Bobabaster, you'd Zion. Bobabaster's 17a pagination is 33. Starting from the Mishnah towards the bottom of the page, the start of the second Peric. We note that the first Peric, Peric, began with a discussion of Hezek Rea. Damage done one neighbor to the other through sight, neighborly relationships and the need to build a wall so that the other person could properly use their property. It's quite interesting because the kind of damage that's being done is not like the neighbor walked into his neighbor's yard and broke anything but the conduct that he has from his own yard causes damage in his neighbor's yard and a wall is necessary in order to preclude such damage. Moving on into the second Peric, the second chapter of the Mishnah, we definitely enter into the topic called Nizkai Shehreynim, damage of neighbors, neighborly considerations or as some term it the zoning laws and we will find in this Peric numerous examples of things that you can't do even though it's your property because it will end up being go-roam causing some sort of damage to other people. An example is a granary in one's own area if it's not distant enough from other people then the residual effects, the chaff for example, could cause worse breathing conditions in the environment and therefore is going to cause a degree of restriction as to where a person can conduct such behaviors even though it's in his own property. This theme affects noise even if a person is operating in their own place in our time the concept of noise is more of an hourly restriction. It's daytime versus nighttime when it's permitted but there could be other types of restrictions depending on what's being done and what social situation which laws are being imposed the Mishnah describes certain types of such restrictions. Likewise if a person does something that attracts an animal to an environment the case that's brought is he has a ladder in a certain place which enables through this ladder an animal to climb up and access his friends birds and kill them. So then that ladder is not allowed to be there even though it's in your rishos it's in your domain. Likewise if a person were to have a garbage dump in their backyard and therefore it's attract wildlife which then causes damage to all the neighbors. There could be restrictions on such things besides the fact that an unsightly thing might also have zoning laws relevant to it. Interestingly we'll encounter the concept of anything that causes weakness to the other person's things. Our mission is going to discuss having water near the other person's wall and therefore causing deterioration or caustic things being stored nearby. To a certain degree we appreciate there's a social contract like we described regarding Mitzvahs and all Jewish attitudes. If you have somebody on a boat and he digs a hole under his own seat and the water is rushing in but it's under his own seat. He can't argue what's bothering everybody else they're making a ruckus I just dug the hole under my own seat and the water's coming because the water ends up spreading and it's residual and it definitely affects everyone. Let's begin the Mishnah. Lo Yachpar al-Dambour, Samok libero shalqaveiro. A person is not allowed to dig a pit too close to the pit of his friend such that even though it's still in his own possession but he's not leaving enough of that normative ground which would support the pit of his friend and the whole thing is going to cave in. Skipping two lines, "Zalq'im'qain" unless "Hirqq mikos al-qaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro" - "f'achim visad visid" he distanced himself the description of the Mishnah is "three f'achim" and he put a sealant on the pit. Umar hikim is a gefes, a zaval, a zalmala, a zasid. And he asked the distance, different types of things that generate heat or caustic are of caustic nature mikos al-qaveiro from the wall of his friend shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro, visad visid and he asked to distance them three f'achim or seal off the wall so that it's protected. "Mikos al-qaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro" - a person has the distance plants, the plowing process because it shakes the area and the disposing of bathroom material of urine, you have to keep that away from the wall by three f'achim because, and this is explained in the later sources, but depending on what the wall was built of, there are certain types of building construction that would be weakened by the urine, and persons not allowed to do that. "O marhikim mister re'chayim shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro shalqaveiro" - likewise the small grinding stone, a big grinding stone would have a greater distance required, but a small grinding stone has a restriction of three f'achim from the bottom stone, which is the same as saying fourth f'achim from the top stone that rides on top, because the top stone was one t'af'ach smaller than the bottom stone, but that's the distance that's required from the small grind stone because of the effects that it has on the neighbor. In shalq'an'arach siman kufnunhei, many of these examples are brought la halaha, but there are more comments - "Yasho mohapi bikim v'ummin" - indeed these things have to be assessed based on the experts of the time, and according to what particular type of damage is involved and could potentially happen. The basic simplified rule is that if something is called a 'grama' only causative, 'grama' is potter, he might not be liable, but also he is forbidden to do it, and therefore once it is noticed he might not necessarily be liable for the damage, but he is going to be liable to stop the damage to put an end to whatever behavior is causing the damage now that it has been noticed. Yashikouach, thank you for joining.