Bava Batra 99: Accessing Property Through Another's Property

The Gemara takes note of the empty space that is designated above, below and surrounding the cherubs in the Holy of Holies.  The rabbis debate how the cherubs might have been standing in different positions.  Their calculations are attempts to establish proofs for what are the appropriate sizes for homes.

Continuing on the topic of cherubs, the rabbis consider the direction that the cherubs were facing.  Were they representing the relationship between people and G-d?  Were they representing a student leaving a teacher?

We learn a new Mishna with a very short Gemara.  The Mishna teaches about how to manage access to a cistern that is only accessed by entering the home of someone who does not own the cistern.  The guidelines:

• one can only enter and leave at times when people ordinarily enter and leave
• animals cannot be brought through the home; a pail of water is brought out to water the animal
• the homeowner should have a lock on his property and the cistern owner should have a lock on the cistern

The Gemara discusses the need for two different locks.

A second new Mishna shares a similar issue.  When one has a garden located beyond another person's garden, one is permitted to enter and exit only at usual times.  One cannot bring a merchant through the garden or enter it just to get to a field.  It is permitted for the owner of the outer garden to sow the path to the inner garden.  If there is a passageway to the inner garden from a different field, then the inner garden can be accessed by anyone at any time.  The owner of the outer garden may plant on the path, as well.  

Rabbi Yehuda quotes Shmuel as describing a very bizarre and unusual case where the owner of an outer garden asks to purchase part of the inner garden.  What can be planted?  Where can it be planted?  Why?  The Gemara also asks about a field that has been damaged by water.  The owner who has taken on the responsibility of the banks of a field is now responsible for the damages.

We end our daf with a third new Mishna.  It concerns a person who appropriates the road that is built through his/her field after building an alternative road through a different part of his/her property.  The thoroughfare must be for public and not his private use.   We learn that a private road is said to be four cubits while a public road is sixteen cubits and a king's thoroughfare and a funeral procession have no maximum width.  

The Gemara's discussion demonstrates the rabbi's awareness that the owner might wish to limit traffic across his/her property.  The rabbis use the example of a person using a stick to dissuade people from travelling on their thoroughfare.  Or create a circuitous route only for others with a straight route for themselves.