Study Bava Batra folio 43B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
The Talmud asks: Why are they liable as paid bailees? Isn’t it a case of safeguarding accompanied by employment of the owner? Since both partners are safeguarding each other’s property, they are both employed by each other, and they should therefore be exempt from the obligations of safeguarding. R
§ A baraita states: If one sold a house to another, or if he sold a field to him, he cannot testify about it for the buyer against a claimant because the financial responsibility to compensate the buyer for it is upon him, and his testimony is biased. By contrast, if he sold a cow to him, or if
Rav Sheshet said: The first clause is stated with regard to the case of Reuven, who robbed Shimon of a field and sold it to Levi, and then Yehuda comes and contests Levi’s ownership, stating that it was actually his. The baraita teaches that Shimon cannot go to court to testify for Levi, because it
The Talmud asks: But once he testified that the field is Levi’s, how is he able to later remove it from his possession? The Talmud answers: This is referring to a case where Shimon says in his testimony: I know that this land is not Yehuda’s, but he did not explicitly testify that it belonged to Le
The Talmud answers: Because Shimon says to himself: The second person is amenable to me, while the first is more difficult than he is, i.e., I prefer to litigate with Levi rather than with Yehuda.