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Why does the Gemara (גמרא) distinguish between an ox that is mu'ad to gore people versus one mu'ad to gore animals? The shiur analyzes whether the distinction stems from people's ability to protect themselves (nezikin perspective) or from the greater difficulty of killing a person (misa perspective). Rashi (רש"י), Tosafos (תוספות), and the Rambam (רמב"ם) offer conflicting approaches that reshape our understanding of establishing chazakah patterns and the nature of mu'ad status.
The shiur explores Bava Kamma 2b's discussion of the terminology negifah and negicha, both referring to goring by keren but with different degrees of force or focus. The Gemara (גמרא) establishes that mu'ad l'adam (warned for goring people) confers mu'ad status for behema (animals), but mu'ad l'behema does not confer mu'ad status for adam. This fundamental asymmetry drives the entire sugya. Rashi (רש"י) presents two explanations. The first pshat suggests adam has a mazal—meaning people can protect themselves—so a more focused attack (negicha) is needed against people, while a less focused attack (negifa) suffices for animals that cannot protect themselves. The second lashon limits the entire discussion to misa (killing), arguing that it requires greater force to kill a person than an animal, and therefore mu'ad status for killing animals doesn't transfer to killing people. This second approach creates a massive difficulty: if mu'ad means the animal has killed three times, how can there ever be a mu'ad that pays kofer, since the animal should have been executed after the first killing? Rashi must answer that the animal gored three animals (not people), and only then killed a person on the fourth occasion—creating mu'ad status specifically for killing.
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Bava Kamma 2b
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