Most of Tractate Bava Batra so far has been concerned with working out people’s intentions. What is or isn’t considered bothersome? How expansive or restrictive are people’s words and documents? The latter is the primary concern of the mishnah on yesterday’s daf, which asked what we can assume is included in a sale when some of the details aren’t specified. On today’s daf, the Gemara mentions some dilemmas of this nature with regard to fields:
A dilemma was raised before the sages: If the seller defined for the buyer only the corners (of the field being sold), what is the halakhah?
The scenario is that in the document of sale, the seller has only marked the corners of a particular field, noting the fields that border it on the corners but not the sides. Do we assume that marking corners is a normative way of indicating the entirety of a space and that the buyer is acquiring the entire field? Or perhaps there’s a reason only the corners were marked and the buyer is acquiring only furrows along the diagonal between these corners?
Then the Gemara adds a related question:
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(If he defined the boundaries of the field in a shape) resembling the Greek letter gamma, what is the halakhah?
The Greek letter gamma looks like an L, with two lines meeting at a right angle. This question has a similar thrust as the previous one, but the details are less evident. According to the Ri, one of the Tosafists and Rashi’s great-grandson, the scenario is one in which a seller marked off the western and southern sides of the field. Do we assume he meant to indicate the entire field or just a triangle-shaped area demarcated by those lines and the hypotenuse? But other Tosafists prefer a different explanation: If the seller marked off little gammas in the northeast and southwest corners of the field, do we assume that since he marked off part of each direction, he meant to include the entirety of the field? Or maybe he only meant to include the part of the field defined by a diagonal shape between those two corners? (There’s a helpful diagram here to help you visualize it.)
One final dilemma is raised:
(If the boundaries of the property being sold were defined) in an alternating fashion, what is the halakhah?
The Rashbam explains this scenario as one where, say, eight fields bordered the field being sold, two on each side. If the seller listed only one of the two fields bordering each side of the for-sale field, do we assume the seller deemed the other fields unnecessary to include, since each side was referenced, indicating the whole field is being sold? Or perhaps the seller is only selling triangles defined by the edge of each field mentioned and the center of the field being sold. (Again, here’s a diagram.)
To all of this, the Gemara responds:
(These dilemmas) shall stand.
While the Gemara often provides intricate and creative solutions to the most granular of questions, at times even the rabbis were stumped, responding simply: teiku. The dilemma has not been resolved. All these scenarios, so visually convoluted that diagrams are needed to make sense of them, are left up in the air.
Of course, even when the Gemara leaves a dilemma unresolved, later codifiers still must determine how we rule. In these cases, Maimonides rules like the more sparing assumption in each case (i.e. only a triangle or a diagonal, not the entire field), as in cases of uncertainty, we default to establishing money in the hands of the current owner — or in this case, the seller.
Read all of Bava Batra 62 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on August 26, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
