Bava Kamma 088

1:
When we ask a professional to make us some object for our use we expect to pay for the work and to receive the requested object. Our present mishnah deals with situations where this does not happen as expected.

2:
David gives Sam wood he has bought and asks him to create from it a table. The wood is worth 50 dinars and the agreed fee is 10 dinars. Unfortunately, Sam makes a complete mess of the task. Not only does David now not have the expected table but he has also lost the wood that he gave Sam, which is now useless. The first clause of our mishnah stipulates that Sam must compensate David for his loss: he must repay the value of the table which was never made. (From the amount of compensation payable Sam is entitled to deduct the fee that they agreed on.)

3:
In the first clause of our mishnah the client supplies the craftsman with the materials. In the second clause the client deposits with the craftsman an object already made which needs to be repaired. The ruling is the same as in the previous clause. The 'carriage' is a kind of large box in which a woman could sit to be carried from place to place, rather like the sedan chair of the 18th century. The 'chest' mentioned by our mishnah is a box for storing things. The 'closet' is also a box for storing things. The difference between the two is that the 'chest' is a wooden box with a lid while the 'closet' is a tall upright box with a door.

4:
We have mentioned on several occasions that in the large villages and small towns in Talmudic times people often grew their own produce in allotments outside the town. These allotments were separated each from the other by a wall, usually made of undressed stones, with the owner's mark on the outside of the wall. Sara hires Joel to dismantle one of the walls of her allotment because she needs the stones elsewhere. In pulling down the wall Joel breaks the stones, which are now useless to Sara. For this mishap Joel must compensate Sara. Furthermore, if the broken stones cause injury to someone Joel must also pay compensation for the injury. (From the moment that he accepted the task he is in possession of the materials, so he is the responsible party, not Sara.)

5:
However, if Joel was working on the northern end of the wall and the southern end collapsed Joel is not responsible. The presumption is that there was some kind of weakness or defect in that part of the wall that caused it to collapse and break the stones. On the other hand, if Sara can convince the judges that it was Joel's hammer blow at one end of the wall that caused the collapse at the other end of the wall he will have to pay her compensation.

Ze'ev Orzech writes:

In BK 084, you cite a mishnah from ketubbot (7:6) where you translate dat yehudit as "law of a Jewish women." That makes the word yehudit a noun. In that case should it not have been yehudiyah? I've seen it translated as "Jewish practice," which makes it an adjective. Why did you chose your version?

I respond:

The Hebrew word Yehudit is often used in Talmudic texts to represent the 'Jewish woman'. (The word Yehudiyyah, as a noun, is a much more recent construction. In the midrash it is one of the names taken by the daughter of Pharaoh who rescued Moses, after her conversion to Judaism.) In the bible [2 Kings 18: 26-28, Isaiah 36:11-24 etc] the word Yehudit is used as a noun (the Hebrew language or the language of the Judeans). In the mishnah to which Ze'ev refers the concept Dat Yehudit is contrasted with Dat Moshe. The latter term refers to what we might call today the 'Jewish Religion' while the former term refers to the supererogatory requirements that Jewish women took upon themselves or behaviour that was expected of Jewish women.