משנה בבא קמא 8:1
הַחוֹבֵל בַּחֲבֵירוֹ חַיָּב עָלָיו מִשּׁוּם חֲמִשָּׁה דְבָרִים, בְּנֶזֶק, בְּצַעַר, בְּרִפּוּי, בְּשֶׁבֶת, וּבְבוֹשֶׁת. בְּנֶזֶק כֵּיצַד. סִמָּא אֶת עֵינוֹ, קָטַע אֶת יָדוֹ, שִׁבֵּר אֶת רַגְלוֹ, רוֹאִין אוֹתוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא עֶבֶד נִמְכַּר בַּשּׁוּק וְשָׁמִין כַּמָּה הָיָה יָפֶה וְכַמָּה הוּא יָפֶה. צַעַר, כְּוָאוֹ בַּשְּׁפוּד אוֹ בַמַּסְמֵר. וַאֲפִילוּ עַל צִפָּרְנוֹ. מָקוֹם שֶׁאֵינוֹ עוֹשֶׂה חַבּוּרָה, אוֹמְדִין כַּמָּה אָדָם כַּיּוֹצֵא בָזֶה רוֹצֶה לִטֹּל לִהְיוֹת מִצְטַעֵר כַּךְ
MISHNAH. One who injures a fellow man becomes liable to him for five
items: 1) for depreciation, 2) for pain, 3) for healing, 4) for loss of time and 5) for
shame/degradation. How is it with (1) Depreciation? If he put out his eye, cut off his arm or broke his leg, the injured person is considered as if he were a slave being sold
in the marketplace, and a valuation is made as to how
much he was worth (previously). And how much he is worth (now).
(2) Pain —If he burnt him either with a skewer or with a nail, even though it is on a place where no bruise could be made, it has to be calculated how much a man of equal standing would require to be paid to undergo such pain.
What questions, comments, or problems do you see with the Talmud here?
Matthew
ReplyDeleteWhy if one of the five things are done to a man should the man who did it be liable if the man could still do his job? Compensation is the answer the talmud said but could it be as simple as paying for medical bills or just doing simple deeds, why must he be a servant or a so called slave to this man?
Sam Comment #1: This is not exactly what the text is saying. Remember what Rabbi Goodman said about stealing a car. If you steal a car, and then wreck it, you owe the owner what it was worth at the time that you stole it. This text is more applicable to humans. The question is, "How do you value a human?" to which the answer is pretend that both versions of themselves are up for sale, and the injuring party has to pay the difference in value.
DeleteMichelle Comment #1
ReplyDeleteIf someone breaks their leg and can't go to work or school for x amount of days, the person who injured that person should pay the time that the person is missing. I agree with Matthew I don't think the person should be a slave that person shouldn't have to suffer being a slave and waiting on the injured person hand and foot. He should have to do something like helping him around or fill in at his job so that the person who is injured does not loose it.Replying to Sam's comment what your saying is do a deed like pay the bill/for the broken leg, not be sold as a slave. A human should be treated with respect this will be cheesy but treat others as you would want your self treated. If you were the one who injured the person would you want to be sold as a slave? or would you rather just pay for the bill and/or help the person with whatever for a few days. That is different then being a slave. A person with a broken leg may not be able to walk but is still worth just as much as a person without a broken leg in my opinion. Although, the text argues that the person who hurt the other is now being sold live a slave.
Sarah Comment #1: I agree with Sam but I can also contradict him. If a person breaks his or her arm, then the person who is liable should have to pay back for the time that is taken away from work. If the person breaks the arm the person should be required to pay for the medical exam and for the time taken away form work how ever many days that is. So in essence I agree with Sam because the person who did the harm should have to pay back the amount of damage that was caused. Also to reply to Matt, the man who hurt the man is liable for any damage done. If the man misses work, then the man has to pay back for the time away from work. If the man is at work but is in pain while doing the job, the man who hurt the man should have to pay for the pain. The law of Karma also comes into play. If you do something bad, something bad will happen to you. So if the person say breaks and arm and it is your fault because you punched him, most likely, depending on the person, the person who got punched will make sure that something bad happens to person who cause him pain. It all depends on how bad the injury is and wether it was an accident or on purpose. So like the text states that if a person gets hurt, the person who got hurt him is like a slave. He is incapable of doing anything and it was the person who hurt him fault. So the person who hurt him is not a slave but does have to pay for bills and time away from work if the person is incapable of going to work.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't karma- in karma 'the universe' compensates for ill deeds. Here- a court allows your victim to get you back directly.
DeleteAlex Gage #1
ReplyDeletewhy is the injured man considered like a slave when he gets injured by others. it says that the assaulter has to be his slave in order to pay the injured man back. he has to give him money wait till he heals and then has to take punishment for the deed. My question is why does the talmud say that the injured man is like a slave?
Aliya Comment #1:
ReplyDeleteDepreciation and Pain are two different things. When we hear of things that talk about pain, we know that they mean bruises, bumps, and burns. These will eventually heal, possibly leaving a scar, but a person is still fully functional with a scar. Pain is something that is serious, but not as serious as Depreciation. Depreciation refers to an arm or a leg or an eye being cut off or broken. These are non-regenerative parts of a persons body, so shouldn't injuries like these have to have more of a compensation? A person who is missing an arm or a leg is not as efficient as he would be if he still had these limbs. This would put him at a major disability, and could put him out of work forever. Say Bob punches Jim in the face and Jim gets a bruise, Bob would have to pay for Jim’s medical expenses to nurse the bruise. But say that Bob punches Jim in his mouth and eight of his teeth fall out, according to this text Bob would have to pay the amount of money that Jim was worth before eight of his teeth were knocked out.
I agree with Sarah because if someone harms another they must repay them with their lost time and money they would have made, but because they were injured they were restricted from working. If someone injures another to the point where they can't work then the striker must repay their lost efforts. This is the opposite of the eye to eye because an eye to eye means that they must repay them by breaking their own body part that they injured on the other man. I think that this article is easier for the striker because they would be happy to harm someone and repay them instead of repaying them by harming themselves in return. I do agree with the person becoming a slave because they must suffer more then the person that they harmed at first. If a person harms another then I find it necessary for them to go through a harder time then the person that was harmed at first. I don't think they should go through the misery of harming themselves physically because it just makes life harder for everyone and doesn't make things fair.
ReplyDeleteAlex RAVIOLI comment #2!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with mathew and michelle. I think that the person should not be a slave and suffer through being a slave. The person should help the person who got injured and spend time with him instead of doing slave work. Doing slave work and being sold as a slave will not help the situation at all. I also agree with the fact that the person who last work for x amount of days should get there time off payed for because they had missed work. I would rather help the person who got injured then be sold as a slave because it is horrible and it would not help the injured. Helping the injured and paying his bills would be much better because you are spending the time with them that they lost from work. The text also states that if a person gets hurt he is like a slave because he can not do anything and it is not his fault.
Sarah Pomerantz Comment #1:
ReplyDeleteThis text begins by saying that if someone injures another than the person who injured the other is liable for compensation. One issue with this text is who is who throughout the text. While reading this text the person who injured the other and the injured person are both a "he". The Talmud could have made it less confusing by using the 'injured and the attacker'.
The first section is easy to understand if read closely. The person injured needs to estimate how much he was worth before he is injured and minus how much he is worth after. This is all based off people’s opinion. This however can be seen and is not based on the pain but on the physical capability of the person. Is there a panel of people that deem how much one is worth?
In the second section it talks about the amount of pain caused from a burn. An issue with this part of the text is a burn can affect others more than some and the pain is all based on the word of the injured. How is it possible that the person who is injured can make a clear amount of money when it is all subject to one persons word. There is no way for another person to estimate the amount of pain caused. The person injured can say that the attacker owns him or her an extraordinary amount of money and the attacker would have to pay it. If the attacker cannot pay the amount demanded then he or she becomes a slave to the injured. How can this be fair?
Rachel comment #1
ReplyDeleteThe amount of money required for deprecation gives the victim of every case equal value to a slave without taking this person’s lifestyle into account. The victim is not a slave and would value different parts of his body according to their necessity, which is different for every person. For example, a farmer uses his feet much more than a scholar because of his profession and would place it at a higher value. The farmer would not be able to work in his fields if he couldn’t walk, while the scholar would be at a disadvantage, but would still be able to write and make a living if he lost his ability to walk. If the same injury has a larger effect on certain people then the value of the injury should fluctuate based on that effect. In order to pay the money required to compensate for the victim’s pain you must find out how much money a man of equal standing would accept to undergo the same pain. The problem with this is that everyone has a different level of tolerance for pain, so finding a man that is truly of equal standing with the victim would be extremely tedious and impossible to really know if this person has the exact same level of pain tolerance as the victim. For example, if three different people were stung by a bee, one may outwardly express their pain through crying, while the other two seem un-phased by the sting. We cannot measure the amount of pain each person felt because we cannot measure the amount of effort each person put into concealing their pain. Although it may seem as if the two people who didn’t react negatively towards the bee sting had the same amount of pain tolerance, one of them could have felt more pain, but tried harder to conceal it.
I don't that it's fair to condemn a person to slavery because they lost an arm, leg, eye, or anything. It wasn't the victim's desire or hope that they would loose a body part and this would therefore be unfair to treat the victim differently because they had the unfortunate experience of loosing something from their body. The Talmud seems here to be very unforgiving and inconsiderate in their ruling of what to do with a disabled person. Not everyone is lucky to be fully functional among society and shouldn't be devalued for their disability.
ReplyDelete