Guide
Mishnah Nezikin (Damages)
By Carol Bakhos
The fourth order of the Mishnah, Nezikin, encompasses private law, property law, and criminal law. Its tractates discuss modes of capital punishment, rules governing interactions with idolaters, the court system, rules of evidence, judicial error, and oaths of various kinds. The passages cited here are taken from tractates Bava Kamma, Sanhedrin, Eduyyot, and Avot.
Related Primary Sources
Primary Source
Mishnah Bava Kamma
If one causes a fire through a deaf person, a mentally incompetent person, or a minor, that one is exempt from human law but liable under the law of heaven. If one caused it through a legally…
Primary Source
Mishnah Sanhedrin
1. Once the verdict has been sealed, they take him out to stone him. The place of stoning was outside the courthouse, as it is said: Take out the blasphemer…
Primary Source
Mishnah Eduyyot
1:4. Why are the opinions of Hillel and Shammai recorded [only] to be nullified? To teach successive generations that they should not be insistent in their opinions, for the fathers of the world were…
Primary Source
Mishnah Avot
5. He [Rabban Gamaliel, the son of Judah the Prince] used to say: A boor is not sin-fearing, and a person of lax observance is not pious. A shy person cannot learn, and an impatient person cannot…