Introduction (with help from Artscroll)

Bava means gate. Maybe Bubby comes from this word alluding to an entrance through which her and her descendants pass through as they enter the living world.

This Gemara deals with damages that one is liable for, be it himself, his animal, his pit, his fire, etc. There are avos and toldos. A damage explicitly written in the Torah is an av and a toldah, although equally punishable is not mentioned in the Torah but is similar to the damage an av.

If a person himself/herself damages they must pay for 5 things which the damage causes:

(A) Nezek – the permanent damage done, like causing another to go deaf
(B) Tza’ar – pain
(C) Ripui – medical costs
(D) Sheves – loss of employment
(E) Bosher – humiliation if injured in public

These payments are only made for damage done to another person, not to an animal. Damage to an animal requires only Nezek to be paid.

The following damages done by one’s animals are listed in the first mishneh.

Firstly, shor – ox (actually any animal he owns) is liable for shein, regel, keren, and their toldos.

Shein is teeth, meaning what your animal eats from others.
Regel is feet, meaning what your animal tramples on, and
Keren is horns, meaning the goring that he does which damages other animals or people.

The tolda of shein is an animal rubbing against a wall to scratch himself, and it damages the wall.

A tolda of regel is if the animal brushes against something as it walks, and a tolda of keren would be if the animal kicks someone or something.

Bor – pit is another potential damager when people or animals fall in. The one who dug it or uncovered it would be liable. This includes the tolda if any obstacle is placed where or people or animals go.

Another damage is fire when one ignites a fire and it spreads if the fire destroys a neighbor’s property when a usual wind fuels it. However, if an unusual wind would fuel it then he would not be liable because it is an ones – unforeseen.

An example of a tolda would be a stone that one left at the edge of a roof and a wind blew it down and did damage.

Siyum to Bava Kama (119B)

Start reading from ’ואם עושה עצל כו

The Gemara expounds upon the mishneh from Daf 119A which says that a worker who is doing work in the owner’s premises and pieces of the material that he is working with fall away, then they would belong to the owner, even sawdust from sawing wood which would seem negligible still would go to the owner.

Workers who chisel stones (in their own property) may keep the chiseled pieces.

The following items that workers trim in the field should go to the owner if he wants them:

• trees
• grapevines
• thorn bushes
• weeds
• vegetables

The same is true for green grain which has not fully ripened.

People may send in their animals to eat them when the field owners have no animals to do so because it is beneficial for the growth of the grain that these green grains get eaten. This was a statement made by Rebbe Yehuda.

Ravina says in the city of Mechasya where the owners are particular that their animal eat the green grains then other people could not send in their animals to eat it.

The Marsha takes note that the last Rashi, when commenting about the animals in Mechasya, he uses the words good pasture is desired by the owners of the animals there. However, the Gemara doesn’t say that this green grain pasture is necessarily good?

Explains the Marsha that Rashi wanted to end the mesechta on a good note as we always like to end any discourse on a positive note. [This is a reason, by the way, that we don’t stop the aliyas while reading the Torah on a posuk that is negative.]

Why then did the Gemara itself not use the word Tov as Rashi? Because the end of Nezikin is really Bava Basra so it’s not necessary to use a positive note here.

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