Talmud - Bava Kamma 24a בבא קמא כ״ד א׳

When the ox performs its gorings at intervals, its owner is liable; if it performs its gorings successively, is it not all the more so that its owner is liable? They said to Rabbi Meir: The halakha with regard to a woman who experiences a discharge of uterine blood after her menstrual period [zava] will prove that your a fortiori inference is invalid: If her sightings occur at intervals, i.e., if she sees a flow of uterine blood on three consecutive days, she becomes ritually impure; while if her sightings were consecutive, for example if all three occurred on the same day, she remains pure.

Rabbi Meir said to them: The case of the zava does not disprove my opinion, because the verse states in reference to the parallel halakha of a man who experiences a gonorrhea-like discharge [zav]: “And this shall be his ritual impurity when he has a discharge” (Leviticus 15:3). The word “this” emphasizes that in this matter the halakha requires following the instructions of the verse precisely as they were recorded, and in this case the verse associates the impurity of the zav with the number of sightings of discharges the man observed, and it associates the impurity of the zava with the number of days during which she experienced sightings of blood, as it says: “Many days” (Leviticus 15:25). By contrast, with regard to the goring ox, the a fortiori inference remains in place.

The Gemara asks about this interpretation: From where is it determined that this additional phrase: “And this,” serves to exclude a zava from having her status determined by individual sightings of blood, associating it instead with the number of days on which she experienced bleeding? Say instead that it serves to exclude the zav from having his status determined by sightings on separate days, indicating that he will be rendered a zav only if he experienced three discharges on a single day and not on separate days. The Gemara answers: The verse states elsewhere: “And one who has a discharge, whether it be a man or a woman” (Leviticus 15:33). The verse juxtaposes the ritual impurity of a male to that of a female to teach that just as the female’s ritual impurity is caused by sightings on multiple days, so too the ritual impurity of a male can be caused by sightings on multiple days.

The Gemara asks: The derivation from the verse could just as easily lead to the opposite conclusion. But let him compare the female to the male; just as a male becomes ritually impure based on the number of sightings, even if they all occur on the same day, so too should a female become ritually impure based on the number of sightings, even on the same day. The Gemara answers: But the Merciful One excluded this possibility by making use of the term “and this.”

The Gemara asks: And what did you see to make you exclude associating the ritual impurity of women with the number of sightings, rather than excluding associating the ritual impurity of men with the number of days? The Gemara answers: It stands to reason that this is so, as the context of the verse deals with sightings, and therefore an additional phrase serves to exclude sightings, but can you say that in a context where it deals with sightings it excludes days? The exclusionary term “and this” appears in the section discussing the halakhot of the zav, in the context of which it mentions sightings and not days, and therefore when it excludes something from these halakhot and limits them to specific cases, it will exclude it from being associated with sightings.

The Gemara returns to the subject of classifying an ox as innocuous or forewarned: The Sages taught in a baraita: Which type of ox is deemed forewarned? Any animal about which witnesses testified that it gored on three days is forewarned. And it reverts to its former innocuous status if children pet it and nevertheless it does not gore; this is the statement of Rabbi Yosei. Rabbi Shimon says: A forewarned ox is any ox about which witnesses testified that it gored three times, and the Sages spoke about three days only with regard to reversals, meaning that in order for an ox to revert to innocuous status, the ox must refrain from goring on three separate days. Each of these additional views on this subject combine aspects of both of the opinions mentioned in the mishna, those of Rabbi Yehuda and those of Rabbi Meir.

Rav Naḥman says that Rav Adda bar Ahava says: The halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda concerning the criteria for deeming an animal forewarned, as Rabbi Yosei concedes to his opinion on this issue, and the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Meir concerning the criteria for reverting the status of an animal to innocuous, as Rabbi Yosei concedes to his opinion on that issue.

Rava said to Rav Naḥman: And let the Master say the reverse, that the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Meir concerning the criteria for deeming an animal forewarned, as Rabbi Shimon concedes to his opinion on this issue and the halakha is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda concerning the criteria for reverting the status of an ox to innocuous, as Rabbi Shimon concedes to his opinion on that issue. Rav Naḥman replied to Rava: I hold in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Yosei, as Rabbi Yosei’s analysis [nimmuko] is with him, i.e., it is sound.

A dilemma was raised before the Sages: The three days that the mishna teaches in the context of Rabbi Yehuda’s opinion with regard to the testimony needed to assign the status of forewarned to an ox, are they needed in order to render the ox forewarned, or are they needed in order to forewarn the man who owns the ox, to inform him that he needs to take precautions to keep it from causing further harm?

The Gemara asks: What is the practical difference between the two possibilities? The Gemara answers: The practical difference is in a case where three groups of witnesses came to the court on one day, each testifying about a separate instance of goring caused by the ox on three separate days. If you say that their testimony serves to render the ox forewarned by determining that it gored on three separate days, then in this case the animal has been classified as forewarned on the basis of their testimony. But if you say that their testimony serves to forewarn the man, the ox has not been classified as forewarned on the basis of this testimony since the owner heard all of the testimony on a single day. This enables him to say: It is only now that they testified against me; and therefore his ox will not be deemed forewarned until he has been issued warnings over the course of three separate days. What, then, is the solution to the dilemma raised above?

The Gemara suggests: Come and hear a solution from a baraita (Tosefta 2:3): An ox does not become forewarned until witnesses testify against it in the presence of its owner and in the presence of a court. If they testified against it in the presence of a court but not in the presence of its owner, or in the presence of its owner but not in the presence of a court, it does not become forewarned until they testify against it in the presence of a court and in the presence of its owner.

Furthermore, if two witnesses testified against the ox concerning its first incident of goring, and two other witnesses testified against it concerning the second incident, and two other witnesses testified against it concerning the third incident, there are three separate testimonies here, but they are considered as one with regard to rendering their statements as conspiring testimony.

Therefore, if the first set of witnesses is determined to be conspiring witnesses, there are two testimonies remaining here that claim that the ox gored, and the owner must pay for half the cost of the damage in each case. But the owner of the ox is exempt from having to pay the full cost of the damage, and the conspiring witnesses are exempt from paying the owner what he would have had to pay were their testimony accepted and his ox deemed forewarned, as they testified only concerning the first incident of goring, and the ox would not have been deemed forewarned on the basis of this testimony alone. And similarly, if the second set of witnesses was also determined to be conspiring witnesses, there is one testimony remaining here that claims that the ox gored, the third. At this point too, the owner of the ox is exempt from having to pay the full cost of the damage and the conspiring witnesses are exempt from having to pay the owner the full cost of the damage.

If the third group of witnesses was also determined to be conspiring witnesses, all the witnesses become liable. The third group is liable to pay the owner of the animal the payment for half the cost of the damage they tried to make him pay for the third incident of goring, and all three groups must share in the payment of the other half of the damage for the final incident that they tried to charge him for by classifying his ox as forewarned. And concerning this it is stated: “And you shall do unto him as he had conspired to do unto his brother” (Deuteronomy 19:19).

The Gemara clarifies: If you say that the purpose of the testimony is to render the ox forewarned, the halakha presented in this baraita works out well, as according to this opinion it can be said that all of the witnesses came on the same day at the behest of the alleged victim of the third incident, and therefore they were all certainly aware of each other’s testimony. Consequently, the first set of witnesses shares in the responsibility for the testimony of the last group, as they are all co-witnesses in the effort to have the ox rendered forewarned.

Traduction : The William Davidson digital edition of the Koren Noé Talmud, with commentary by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz.

BavaKamma 24a examines Rabbi Meir's a fortiori argument on repeated goring, contrasted with the biblical distinction between a zav's discharges and a zava's bleeding days.