For the source text click/tap here: Bava Batra 2
To download, click/tap here: PDF
Masechet Bava Batra – the “last gate” – is the third and final section of Masechet Nezikin, the large tractate that deals with financial matters.
Bava Batra differs from its predecessors, Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia, in two ways that are interconnected. While Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia dealt, on some level, with criminal matters, Bava Batra focuses solely on civil law.
Parallel to this, the laws contained in the other two masechtot were often based on sources in the Torah and on the interpretation of the Sages, while our masechet is grounded in Rabbinic enactments whose sources are their understanding of human nature, on community agreements and on the need to establish boundaries and principles for business transactions in the Jewish community.
There are four basic topics covered in this Masechet:
Relationships between neighbors
Working with legal proofs and documents
Sales
Inheritance law.
The first Mishnah teaches that if the two parties agree to divide their courtyard by building a wall, it should be built ba-emtza – in the middle – with each party contributing an equal amount of space, whose area will depend of the type of material that is being used.
The gemoro discusses types of visual trespass which allows us to explore the nature of harm when privacy is violated including online.