Study Bava Batra folio 143A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
וכרכיש בה רישיה בי מדרשא. אזל לגביה, אמר ליה: אילו אמר ליה ״קני כחמור״, מי קני?!
and he nodded [vekharkeish] his head in the study hall in approval of this explanation. R' Yirmeya went to R' Avin, who said to him: R' Abbahu’s reasoning is that if a father said to his son: Acquire an item as a donkey does, does he acquire it? In the same manner that the son would not acquire anything if his acquisition were likened to that of a donkey, which possesses no ability to acquire an item, so too, since the father compared the son’s acquisition to the acquisition effected by his unborn children, who possess no ability to acquire property, the son did not acquire any property.
דאיתמר: ״קני כחמור״ – לא קנה. ״את וחמור״ – רב נחמן אמר: קנה מחצה, ורב המנונא אמר: לא אמר כלום. ורב ששת אמר: קנה הכל.
This is as it was stated: With regard to one who says to another: Acquire an item as a donkey does, he does not acquire any property, as a donkey cannot acquire property. But with regard to one who says: You and a donkey should both acquire my property, there is a disagreement. Rav Naḥman says: The person acquires his half of the property, and Rav Hamnuna says: It is as though the giver does not say anything. Since the beneficiary was included with the donkey in the same acquisition, he does not acquire any property, just as the donkey does not acquire any property. Rav Sheshet says: The person acquires all the property. As the giver knew that a donkey cannot acquire property, he intended for the person, who was capable of acquiring property, to acquire all the property.
אמר רב ששת: מנא אמינא לה? דתניא, רבי יוסי אומר: אין לך מר בקישות, אלא פנימי שבו. לפיכך, כשהוא תורם – מוסיף על החיצון שבו, ותורם.
Rav Sheshet said: From where do I say this? As it is taught in a baraita: R' Yosei says: There is nothing bitter in the cucumber other than its inner part, which is sometimes bitter and inedible and unfit to be separated as teruma. Therefore, since one does not know if the cucumber he separates as teruma is bitter inside, when he separates teruma, he adds part of another cucumber as teruma, in addition to the outer part of the cucumber, which is edible. And he separates both as teruma, thereby ensuring that the teruma consists of sufficient edible cucumber.