In this masechet (tractate), we'll talk about damage that was caused and compensation for that loss. The entity that causes the damage is called the mazik (entity that causes damage). That's the one responsible for paying for the damage caused, and the one who collects for the loss is called the nizak (one who collects for the loss).
The Torah gives us four different primary categories that are mentioned in the Torah of types of damage that this Mishnah will go through. Each one of them also includes outgrowths or damages that are derived from each one of these four primary categories. The Mishnah says, “There are four different primary damages.” Number one, the ha-shor, the ox. The ox causes damage with its feet as it moves, as it walks. This is also known as Regel, foot: damage done by an animal while it's walking or moving. A toladah of this would be if an animal is walking down a street and its hair gets caught in an object. The object is then thrown to the floor by the hair, through the animal's movement, and the damage happens because of the hair. That's a toladah.
Number two, veha-bor, a pit. A pit is a hole in the ground where people or an animal could fall and be damaged. That's the fundamental point here: it's damage done by an obstacle that doesn't move, that's passive, that stays in place. A toladah of that would be if someone spits onto the floor. The spit is there on the floor, and somebody slips on it and gets damaged.
Number three, the tooth of an animal. This is damage done by an animal as it's deriving pleasure, as it's enjoying something. The shen, the tooth of an animal, is when it's eating something, for example: it's deriving pleasure from it, but it causes damage at the same time. A toladah of this would be an animal that goes to scratch its back and breaks a wall as it's scratching. That damage would be part of the shen, part of the Mav'eh (damage through eating) category.
Number four, veha-hever, fire. Fire burns on property, Esh. The damage is done by something that's left in one spot, and then a natural force blows it to another spot and it causes damage to the place it travels to. A toladah of this would be if somebody has a stone left on the roof and the wind blows it off, damaging somebody else's property. That is an example of hever.
The four Avot Nezikin that we're mentioning over here—there's one more that's called Keren, where damage is done by an animal with the intention of damaging. Keren means horn. It tries to do something and cause a problem. It causes damage in an intentional way. We don't mention this because we only mention the types of damage that are normal behavior. Keren is not normal behavior for most animals, but if an animal does get into a habit and we notice that it repeats itself over and over again, then it would be liable the same way that these other Avot would be liable. In general, when it's Keren, we don't make it pay the full price. It's only half of the damage that it causes.
We're also only mentioning damage done by an outside force, not a human being. We're not talking about an adam ha-mazik, a person who damages, which we'll talk about at some point in the masechet.
The Mishnah now goes into why we need to mention each one of these four Avot Nezikin. Maybe a person could think, “If I only mentioned a few of them, I could learn out one of the others.” Why do we have to specifically mention all four of them? Why can't we learn them out from each other?
The Mishnah says the ox that damages when it walks through Regel is different from the tooth, which is damage done through shen, through deriving pleasure in eating. The difference between the two is that an animal normally walks through property. Regel is something that normally happens. Shor is the normal way of the world. It walks onto another person's property and sometimes causes damage. As opposed to shen, when talking about eating, an animal doesn't normally do that. An animal is usually fed by its master, by its owner, and it only eats when it's hungry.
So if the Torah only told us about the damage of Regel, the damage done through walking, I would think, “Ah, only common behavior is the responsibility of the owner of this animal to guard against damage.” But when talking about non-normal behavior, things that are out of the norm, you can't really expect the owner to watch his animal to stop it from eating. That's not something that he expects to do. So therefore, the Torah has to tell us that eating shen is the responsibility of the owner to prevent that type of damage.
Damage done through eating is different from damage done, as with a regular ox, through walking. The difference is that an animal benefits when it eats the property of another, because now the owner doesn't have to feed his animal anymore. But when talking about damage that the owner does not benefit from—walking through another person's property and causing damage by knocking something down—if the Torah didn't tell us about that, if the Torah only told us that the damage of eating is the responsibility of the owner, we'd say, “Ah, it's the responsibility of the owner because he benefits from it. So that's the one that he would have to be responsible for.” But the damage done by walking, where the owner gains no benefit whatsoever, wouldn't be the responsibility of the owner of that animal. So to make sure that this mistake, this misunderstanding, doesn't happen, the Torah tells us straight out that walking, Regel, is also damage that the owner is responsible for.
And we're talking about the ox and the tooth. Those first two that we mentioned, the Mav'eh and the shor, or the shor of the Mav'eh. Both of them have life. They're living creatures. They're not like fire, which has no life. So if we didn't mention fire but mentioned both of these, ox and the tooth, what would a person think? “Ah, only when it comes to a living animal is there a responsibility on the owner to make sure that it doesn't damage. He has to watch over it very carefully because these animals have a life of their own. They can move on a dime or in whichever direction they want, and they could cause damage in an unexpected way.”
But when it comes to fire, fire doesn't have a mind of its own. It's not super careless to leave a fire without supervision because it can't choose to go wherever it wants. It happens to spread. But you could argue that you'd be exempt from paying for the damage of fire because maybe it wasn't your responsibility as the owner, because it's not something that you're obligated to watch in a very strict way.
Therefore, if the Torah only told us about the animal damages, which are, like we mentioned, shor and Mav'eh—the ox, which damages through walking, and the Mav'eh, which is damage through eating—I wouldn't automatically learn that. I wouldn't learn out fire; I wouldn't learn out Esh. Because with Esh, I would think maybe I don't have to pay for damages by fire because it doesn't have a mind of its own. And therefore, the Torah needed to tell us specifically the example of Esh, of fire.
And the animals, which take up two of the Avot, which are shor and Mav'eh, those two and the one of Esh are unique in the fact that they move around and damage. They don't stay in one place. They have to be watched very, very carefully because they have a tendency to move around and spread. Ah, so if we only mention those three, I may think that bor, which is a hole in the ground, a pit in the ground, wouldn't be the responsibility of the owner to make sure that it doesn't cause damage. Why? Because that doesn't move around. So I would think that it's not the responsibility of the owner of that pit. Therefore, in order to undo that faulty thinking, the Torah has to tell us specifically that the owner has to pay for the damage done by a pit. It has to mention that because it's different, because it's passive. It doesn't move. So it's different from the other three Avot that we mentioned.
We mentioned all of these different types of Avot Nezikin, these primary damagers that a person has to pay if he causes damage through them. They have some common characteristics. The common characteristic behind them is that they tend to do damage. They could hurt. They could cause difficulty and problems to property or other people. The responsibility for watching them is on their owner. It's on you. He owns them or created them. Therefore, he has a responsibility to make sure that they don't cause damage. And if they do cause damage, one of these four that we mentioned, the damager—the person who is responsible for guarding one of these four things—has to pay the damages. He has to pay the damages from a person's land. As the Torah tells us, a person's land could be divided up in many different ways. There's high-quality land, low-quality land, and medium-quality land. A person, as the Torah tells us, if he chooses to pay another person for damage through land, has to give him high-quality land. He can't give him low-quality land.