Bava Batra

Embark on a journey of Jewish learning and discovery, exploring the depth of our Bava Batra resources, where tagged items including audio, programs, and podcast episodes await your exploration.

Bava Batra 13: Splitting Up

Rabbi Jay Kelman

  The opening Mishna of Bava Batra teaches that in the interest of privacy, one neighbour can force the other to build a wall dividing their common property. However, not everything is fit to be divided. The Mishna (Bava Batra 11a) lists the…
Article
Feb 15, 2017

Bava Batra 13: Splitting Up

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The opening Mishna of Bava Batra teaches that in the interest of privacy, one neighbour can force the other to build a wall dividing their common property. However, not everything is fit to be divided. The Mishna (Bava Batra 11a) lists the various…
Article
Feb 15, 2017

Bava Batra 10: Put it in Writing

Rabbi Jay Kelman

Visiting Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin as Torah in Motion “Journeyed through Jewish History”, sitting in the beautifully rebuilt, but tragically empty, Beit Midrash, I read the schedule that Rav Meir Shapiro, the founder of the Yeshiva…
Article
Feb 12, 2017

Bava Batra 9: Please Sir, May I Have Some More?

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The Ramah in his glosses to the Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 249:1) rules that the mitzva of tzedakah can only be fulfilled by giving to the poor. This would seem to be the most plausible, perhaps the only, conclusion one can draw from the Torah…
Article
Feb 7, 2017

Bava Batra 8: Come On In

Rabbi Jay Kelman

“We force him [the resident of a courtyard] to contribute to the building of the guard’s gate” (Bava Batra 7b). When we think of a guard at the entranceway to a courtyard - or in the lobby of an apartment building – we think…
Article
Feb 5, 2017

Bava Batra 4: Good Fences

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The opening pages of Bava Batra discuss how neighbours can force one another to build a fence between their properties. As we discussed in a prior post here, this rule is based on the principle of hezek reiyah, that viewing the private affairs…
Article
Feb 2, 2017

Bava Batra 3: Time for a New Shul

Rabbi Jay Kelman

“Rav Chisda said: One may not destroy a beit knesset until another one is built” (Bava Batra 3b). After spending close to two double-sided pages discussing the building of fences, fences that separate neighbours, Rav Chisda discusses the…
Article
Jan 29, 2017

Bava Batra 2: Mind Your Own Business

Rabbi Jay Kelman

There is a beautiful custom to recite “ma tovu, how goodly are your tents Jacob and your dwelling place Israel” (Bamidbar 24:6). These words uttered by the heathen prophet Bilaam as he attempted to curse the Jewish people are understood…
Article
Jan 26, 2017

An Introduction to Bava Batra

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The three Bavas - Kamma, Metzia and Batra - are the bread and butter of Talmudic learning. If I, like many others, began my formal learning of Talmud in elementary school with Eilu Metziot, the second chapter of Bava Metzia (see here), my…
Article
Jan 24, 2017