Baba Batra

Bava Batra (also Baba Batra; Talmudic Aramaic: בבא בתרא "The Last Gate") is the third of the three tractates in the Talmud in the order Nezikin; it deals with a person's responsibilities and rights as the owner of property. It is part of Judaism's oral law. Originally it, together with Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia, formed a single tractate called Nezikin (torts or injuries).

This "massekhta" (treatise) is not, like Bava Kamma and Bava Metzia, the exposition of a certain passage in the Torah. It is divided into ten chapters, the contents of which may be described as follows: (1) Regulations relating to property held by more than one owner (ch. i.); (2) responsibilities of an owner of property with regard to that of his neighbor (ch. ii.); (3) established rights of ownership and rights connected with property (ch. iii.); (4) laws referring to the acquisition of property by purchase (ch. iv.-vii.); (5) laws of inheritance (ch. viii.-ix.); (6) laws concerning documents (ch. x.).

It consists of 176 pages (dapim), making it the longest tractate of the Talmud.

1. Joint owners of property may dissolve a partnership and divide the property, if the parties consent, except in the case regarding a volume of the Scriptures, which may not be divided under any circumstances (literally, torn in half). Things which lose their value on division can only be divided if all the owners consent. Except in these cases, either party has a right to insist on a division of the property. In the case where a courtyard ("ḥaẓer") is owned by several partners, each of them has to contribute to the usual requirements of a court; if they divide it, a partition wall or fence must be erected in accordance with certain rules. The previous partners are now neighbors; and their relations are described in chap. ii.

A courtyard less than 8 amot (approx. 18 inches x 8 = 144 inches) can only be divided if both partners agree to the division. Depending on how the Mishnah is read, this division is either with a low row of wooden pegs (which shows that visual trespass is not damaging) or a four amot (approx. 72 inches) high stone wall (which shows that visual trespass is considered damaging). If both partners agree to the stone wall, it is built in the middle. The lesson taught here is that if one partner owns more property, he does not need to contribute more space for the stones of the wall.

2. The fundamental rule about neighboring property is that the owner of the adjoining property must avoid everything that might prove a nuisance to the neighbor, or become a source of injury to the neighbor's property. "The noise of a smith's hammer, of a mill, or of children in school, is not to be considered a nuisance" (ii. 3). Disputes as regards to injury or nuisance are generally settled by the fact of prior or established rights (Ḥazaḳah).

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