Masechet Bava Batra, Perek Vav, Mishnah Zayin. Mishnah says: Mi shehayta derech harabim overet betoch sadehu. If somebody had a public path going right through the middle of his own private field, public area, and he didn’t want it there. Netala venatan lahem min hatzad. So what did he do? He didn’t want people walking through his field, so he took that path away and made another path on the side of his field that people could go through. Mah shenatan natan, veshelo lo higi'u. We say that whatever he gave the people to use—that path he created on the side of his field—is now public, and the regular public can use that path. But what he tried to steal, what he tried to take away, he has to give back. He can’t seize public land. He’s not allowed to take it and make it his own, and therefore other people are allowed to use that path. He acted improperly, so, as sort of a penalty, we take the path away from him. We take away the private area that he had turned into a public path, and then even the path that he stole—the public path that he tried to make private—we make public as well. So that’s a penalty on him.
We have different types of widths discussed for different pathways. If somebody sold a path to an individual person and didn’t discuss its width, we assume it’s four amot (cubits), which is what a regular person needs. But if a public highway was sold, it would be 16 amot wide. Many people travel in two different directions, and therefore you need enough room for people and their wagons to go in two different directions. This is all if there was no discussion about what the size of the path was going to be.
But if a king wanted to create a path, he’s entitled to do whatever he wants. He could seize private property, and the royal family and the king are allowed even to go through private property and break down fences, even though they don’t own the property. But if it was the path of a funeral party going to bury a person who passed away, they’re traveling to a grave that has no limit. They’re allowed to go through others’ property to reach the place where a person is buried, and there’s no limit to where they can go. They can even walk through fields and break crops, but they can’t break down fences the way a king can.
A ma'amad was a ceremony they would have after a funeral was finished. They would stand up and sit down seven times. They would give a second set of eulogies just after the burial was finished, just to talk about the futility of life and drive the point home. They would buy a parcel of land to do that. So, dayanei Tzipori amru, the judges in Tzipori said that if the size of the land needed for the ma'amad wasn’t discussed, and it was just purchased for a ma'amad and the seller knew it was for that purpose, he has to give them enough land to plant four kavs (a dry measure) of grain, which is 50 by 33 and a third amot.