Somebody was moving his friend’s barrel from one place to another, and then he tripped and broke it. Whether he was an unpaid shomer (guardian), who was not paid to move the barrel, or a paid shomer, who was paid to move it, he should swear that he did not cause the barrel to break, and he would be exempt from paying for it. Assuming that Tanna Kamma (first Tanna) meant over there that the shomer swears he was not negligent in guarding the barrel, he would be exempt.
Reb Eliezer answered: “Reb Eliezer omer (says), zeh va-zeh yishava (both of them should swear).” I also heard a very similar tradition from my teachers: zeh va-zeh yishava—the unpaid shomer and the paid shomer—both of them should swear and would be exempt from paying for the barrel. But I wonder: How could both of these shomrim be exempt simply by swearing that they were not negligent? A shomer, a paid shomer, is obligated to pay for damages even if he wasn’t negligent. So how could the Mishnah earlier tell us, and how could he have his own tradition, that as long as a shomer swears he wasn’t negligent, he wouldn’t have to pay? The paid shomer even has to pay when he’s not negligent. The only time he wouldn’t have to pay is if he was doing something and there was an unavoidable loss. And we consider this to be tripping. It’s not something unavoidable. A person should have been more careful.
That’s what Reb Eliezer is saying over here. If he was working on a flat surface, a flat path, the shomer would have been negligent because he should have been very careful not to trip. So he was negligent in this case. Therefore, not only does the Shomer Sachar (paid guardian) have to pay, but even the Shomer Chinam (unpaid guardian) would have to pay. Because if there was real negligence over here, a person should have been very careful: walk in a spot that’s flat, take your time, don’t do anything too quickly, and therefore you won’t trip. So Reb Eliezer is shocked at this tradition that he has. He thinks both of these people should be obligated to pay, and swearing would not get them off the hook.
The Mishnah ends over here, but the Chachamim (Sages) elaborate on this in the Gemara and say that when he said the Shomer Chinam and Shomer Sachar have to swear over here, he never meant that they have to swear they weren’t negligent in guarding the barrel. Because, as we said, Reb Eliezer shot back at Tanna Kamma: Even if they weren’t negligent, the Shomer Sachar would have to pay. So that can’t be what Tanna Kamma meant.
So, as we mentioned, there was a special gezerah (decree), a special takanah (enactment), that the Chachamim made when people were carrying barrels. They said it was very common for people to swear over here, for people to carry barrels and help each other out, and for people to fall and the barrels to break. Therefore, the Chachamim suspended the regular rules of shomerim and said that any time anybody is carrying a barrel for somebody, if barrels commonly break, they would be exempt from having to compensate them for the barrel breaking. So that’s what they’re talking about. They have to swear over here that they did not deliberately break the barrel. If they didn’t deliberately break it, no matter what type of shomer you are, Tanna Kamma would answer, “You’re not obligated to pay for the breaking of the barrel.” Therefore, Reb Eliezer’s question was a good one, but he misunderstood what Tanna Kamma was saying.