Study Bava Kamma folio 54A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The word “or” is necessary to separate the cases of the ox and donkey. This indicates that if either falls in individually, the owner of the pit is liable. And how does R' Yehuda derive the halakha to separate the cases in the verse? He derives it from the use of the singular form of the verb: “And
The Talmud now challenges both opinions: Say that the term “and fall” is a generalization, whereas the phrase “an ox or a donkey” is a detail. According to the principles of halakhic exegesis, when the Torah presents a generalization and a detail, the generalization includes only what is contained
The rabbis said in response: The following verse: “The owner of the pit shall pay” (Exodus 21:34), means that it then generalized again. The verses are structured according to the principle of halakhic exegesis of: A generalization, and a detail, and a generalization. According to this principle, y
The Talmud now challenges this answer: If so, just as the explicit detail, i.e., the ox and donkey, is referring to items whose carcass renders a person ritually impure by contact or by carrying, so too, all items, i.e., all animals, whose carcass renders a person ritually impure through contact o
The Talmud answers: If so, let God write only one detail, from which the exclusion of birds could be derived. The Talmud asks: Which detail should the Torah write? If it writes only an ox, I would say that an item that is sacrificed on the altar, such as an ox, indeed renders the owner of the pit