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Does a slave go free when his master injures him due to permissible medical procedure or only through negligence? The shiur analyzes the dispute between Rambam (רמב"ם) and Ramban (רמב"ן) over whether liberation through eye/tooth injury is a tort payment (tashlumei nezek) or an inherent limitation on the parameters of slavery itself. The debate reshapes the entire sugya and the Gemara (גמרא)'s reasoning in Bava Kamma and Kiddushin.
The shiur opens with the case in Bava Kamma 26b where a doctor treating an abscess in a slave's eye accidentally injures him. Raba holds the slave goes free only with intent (kavana), following Rabban Shimon Gamliel, while the Chachamim say he goes free even without intent. Tosafos (תוספות) asks: the Gemara (גמרא) in Kiddushin seems to indicate that even the Chachamim require kavana, contradicting our sugya. Tosafos resolves this by positing two separate requirements: intent to benefit (kavanah letova) and intent for the forbidden act; only when both are absent is the slave freed. Rabbi Zweig presents a fundamentally different reading based on the Rambam (רמב"ם) in Hilchos Avadim 5:13. The Rambam writes that even if the master had no intent to injure (lo niskaven lachazak), if he intended the act that resulted in injury (niskaven l'inyan ha'avera), the slave goes free. This language—focusing on "lo niskaven lachazak" rather than "niskaven letova"—suggests a different conceptual structure. The Rambam adds the cryptic phrase "v'tasachtem bahem" (you shall work with them), hinting that the core issue is not tort liability but the boundaries of slavery itself.
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Bava Kamma 26b
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