This perek (chapter) will deal with properties that are owned by two people. We'll first talk about neighbors who live in a house that is two stories, one on top of the other: one on the bottom floor and one on the top floor. Here we'll talk about a house that fell down, that collapsed, and whose two apartments were both destroyed. How did the owners divide all of the supplies, all the material that was found in the destruction? The Mishnah says that both people divide the wood, stones, and all the dirt that was found in the destruction. It all depends on the size of the apartments. If they were the same size, they split the material. But if the apartments were different sizes, then we break it up according to the equity that they owned in this structure.
If all of the stones were whole, or all of them were broken, they just divide them evenly. But if we see that some of the stones are whole and some are broken, and we can determine how the house collapsed, how it fell in, then we can divide up the stones based on whose stones probably broke. A person would rather have whole stones than broken ones. We can determine which stones likely made the house break and which stones are therefore broken. For example, let's say the house caved in. If the house caved in, we can make the assumption that the lower-floor stones broke and caused the rest of the house to fall in. Therefore, when we have these stones now on the floor, the upper-floor stones are whole. So the person who owned the apartment upstairs could take the whole stones, and the person who lived on the bottom floor would take the broken stones. And the opposite for let's say the house fell over, fell over to its side by a strong wind. The stones that are on the upper floor in that situation likely broke because they fell from a higher place. The stones in the bottom apartment probably remained whole. So, when we're dividing it up, we give the person who owned the top floor the broken stones, and we give the person who lived on the bottom floor the whole stones. So it all depends on also how the house broke and fell in.
If one of the owners recognized some of the stones among the unbroken stones as his, he would be allowed to take them even though they're more valuable than the other stones. But they're counted toward the total number of unbroken stones he would be entitled to. Let's say the way we break things down. He's supposed to get 50 unbroken stones. So if, among the rubble, he says, “Oh, these four stones, I recognize them. They're definitely mine,” we give them to him. But they're not in addition to the 50 that he would get. They're part of the 50 that he would get. So he would now be able to collect 46 additional ones that he does not recognize.