Bava Basra 102a

בבא בתרא ק״ב ע״א

Bava Batra 102a

Learn Bava Basra 102a step by step: Aramaic beside English, every question, answer and proof colour-coded.

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Topic

Finding several buried bodies: when they count as a שכונת קברות (a graveyard), how far one must keep checking, and whose opinion about the size of a burial cave the source follows

Overview

The amud continues a source about someone who digs and finds buried bodies. If he finds three bodies four to eight אמות apart, the place is a real graveyard: he may not move them, and he must keep searching twenty more אמות. Even one more body found there extends the search another twenty. The גמרא asks whose opinion the four-to-eight measurement follows, since the רבנן say a burial chamber is four by six and רבי שמעון says six by eight. It answers with a ברייתא showing another version of רבי שמעון that does use four to eight. Then it challenges this from the twenty-אמות search: by רבי שמעון it should be twenty-two, and by the רבנן eighteen. It answers that this line follows the רבנן, where one chamber was searched along its longer diagonal. Asked why the second chamber isn't measured diagonally too, the גמרא answers that we assume one diagonal, not two.

Opening lines

The steps (9)

1. StatementThree bodies found: it is a graveyard
2. StatementFinding another body keeps the search going
3. ChallengeWhose opinion is four to eight?
4. ResolutionIt is רבי שמעון, in another version
5. ProofThe ברייתא with רבי שמעון's four to eight
6. ChallengeThe twenty-אמות search fits no one
7. ResolutionThe source follows the רבנן, measured along a diagonal
8. ChallengeThen the second chamber should be diagonal too
9. ResolutionOnly one chamber is assumed to be diagonal