Study Bava Batra folio 26B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
עד דאמרי ליה הא דאמר רב יהודה: מצר שהחזיקו בו רבים – אסור לקלקלו. לבתר דנפק, אמר: אמאי לא אמרי ליה: כאן בתוך שש עשרה אמה, כאן חוץ לשש עשרה אמה.
until I told him that which Rav Yehuda says: With regard to a strip of land over which the public has an acquired privilege of use, one may not destroy it. Here too, since I have an acquired privilege of use of this land, you are not permitted to destroy that which I possess. After Rav Pappa left, Rav Huna, son of Rav Yehoshua, said: Why did I not say to him that there, an acquired privilege of use is effective when it is within 16 cubits, as within that area the roots are considered part of the tree, whereas here I cut the roots of the palm trees beyond 16 cubits.
היה חופר בור, שיח ומערה – קוצץ ויורד והעצים שלו (וכו׳). בעא מיניה יעקב הדייבא מרב חסדא: עצים של מי?
§ The Mishnah teaches that if he was digging a cistern, a ditch, or a cave, he may cut downward and the wood is his. The Sage Ya’akov of Hadeyyav raised a dilemma before Rav Ḥisda: To whom does the wood belong? The Mishnah says that the wood is his, without specifying to which of the two individuals this refers, the owner of the tree or the owner of the land.
אמר ליה, תניתוה: שרשי אילן של הדיוט הבאין בשל הקדש, לא נהנין ולא מועלין.
Rav Ḥisda said to him: You learned the answer in a Mishnah in tractate Me’ila (13b). If roots of a tree belonging to an ordinary person [hedyot] extend into a field belonging to the Temple treasury, one may not derive benefit from them, but if one derived benefit from them he is not liable for misuse of consecrated property. That is, even if one does transgress the prohibition and benefit from them, it is not considered misuse and he is not liable to bring an offering.