Study Bava Batra folio 69B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מנא הני מילי? אמר רב יהודה אמר רב, דאמר קרא: ״ויקם שדה עפרון אשר במכפלה וגו׳״ – מי שצריך לגבול סביב. יצאו אלו, שאין צריכין לגבול סביב. אמר רב משרשיא: מכאן למצרים מן התורה.
The Talmud asks: From where are these matters, i.e., that a grafted carob and a sycamore trunk are not included in the sale of a field, derived? Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: As the verse states: “So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave that was within it, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the boundaries around, were established for Abraham as a possession” (Genesis 23:17–18). This teaches that anything that requires a boundary around it, as it does not have natural demarcations, is included in the sale of a field. This excludes these trees, i.e., the grafted carob and the sycamore trunk, which do not require a boundary around them, as they stand out individually on their own. Rav Mesharshiyya says: From here there is a source that the acquisition of the actual boundaries in a sale is from the Torah.
אמר רב יהודה: האי מאן דמזבן ארעא לחבריה, צריך למכתב ליה: ״קני לך דיקלין ותאלין והוצין וציצין״. ואף על גב דכי לא כתב ליה הכי – קני, אפילו הכי – שופרא דשטרא הוא.
§ R' Yehuda said: One who sells land to another must write for him the following in the bill of sale: Acquire for yourself the palm trees and the dates and the branches and the seedlings. And even if he did not write this for him the buyer would still acquire all of these entities, as demonstrated by the Mishnah that it is only a grafted carob and a sycamore trunk that are excluded from the sale of a field. Even so, it is an enhancement of the bill of sale that he write all of the details of the transaction so that there be no possible room for disagreement.