Bava Kamma 91: Evaluating Damages for Humiliation; Status; Self-Injury

The Gemara describes how damages are evaluated.  For example, in the crime of killing, did a soul depart with this assault or was the victim about to die anyway when the assault happened?  Would a killer be held liable for damages regardless of what caused the damage?  Does it matter how many handbreadths deep was the excavation that the victim fell into?  The Gemara says that these damages are not evaluated; the killer is liable to the death penalty in any case.

In the case of a slave owner who blinds or deafens his slave, the slave is emancipated.  What if the slave is wounded by not directly blinded or deafened by the owner’s actions?  The slave must be reimbursed for medical costs.  The Gemara considers what might be considered a physical injury.  Frightening a person so that they startle and injure themselves?  Holding him and shouting into his ear, deafening him?  The latter involves a physical assault and so it results in damages.  The Gemara suggests that cases will be presented to the assembly of judges to both determine how weapons, actions, outcomes etc. can be evaluated.

If one spits on another, the spittle must reach the victim’s skin to claim damages for humiliation.  The rabbis argue about what to do when the spittle reaches only the victim’s clothing.  Perhaps this should be evaluated as similar to verbal assault? But in HaAretz, humiliation through words makes one exempt from monetary payment but liable by Heaven.

Each person is to be paid based on his status.  When considering whether this is a stringency or a leniency, the rabbis use logic:  a poor person does not need much payment for humiliation and so should receive less than the fixed sum discussed yesterday. This would be a leniency. A rich person would require more money for his humiliation and should receive the set sum - a stringency.  Rabbi Akiva argues that all people are children  of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and should be treated as freemen who lost their property.  Thus they are actually rich and should be treated with the respect given to rich people.  

The rabbis discuss a case where a woman’s hair covering is removed in public - must she be reimbursed immediately for humiliation? Did he wait for her to reach her courtyard and then cause her to remove her own head covering, thus ‘injuring’ herself?  

The Gemara moves into a full blown discussion about self-injury.  This is particularly interesting to me as a therapist and as someone who works with many who self-harm.  The Gemara describes self-injury as an act of evil; planning to do evil and then changing one’s mind results in the sin of a broken oath!

Fasting and denying oneself are permitted in the context of nazirut, but can one compel another to sit and fast?  And some rabbis use proof texts (Genesis 9:5) to justify the idea that self-injury is a form of murder.  Rabbi Elazar disagrees.  He uses the argument of one who rends his garments excessively when in mourning, which is punishable under “do not destroy,” (Deuteronomy 20:19).  Thus one is sinning when self-harming, but in a less serious category of transgression.  The Gemara considers that flesh will heal but that garments will be ruined if injured.  

Is a person injuring oneself but ‘afflicting oneself’ and not drinking wine?  This is what a Nazarite might do.  Is a Nazarite a sinner?  Our tradition walks with trepidation on the line between ‘betterment of the self’ through discipline and ‘injuring oneself’ through discipline.

If one person tells another person to cause a necessary injury - to cut down a tree or to kill an ox (both of which are ready to be removed/killed), that person is liable.  Why?  Because he is denying his neighbour from performing a mitzvah.  There seems to be an understood fine of ten golden coins for this transgression.

Deuteronomy (20:19) teaches that palms trees are cut down only after they are producing less than a kav of fruit. An olive tree, however, must be producing less than a quarter of a kav of fruit.  This is because of the greater monetary value of the fruits.  Trees used for food and ‘barren trees’ are considered differently in these circumstances.