Aggadot from Hamivtar

by
Rabbi Yitzchak Blau

Isolation and Education 

The Rabbis taught: A person may not clear stones from his own domain into the public domain. An incident occurred with a certain person who was clearing stones from his own domain into the public domain. A pious person found this fellow and said to him "Empty one! Why are you clearing stones from a domain that is not yours into a domain that is yours?" The fellow scoffed at the pious person. After some time, he needed to sell his field and he was walking in that public domain and tripped over those stones. He said "Fittingly did that pious person tell me Why are you clearing stones from a domain that is not yours into a domain that is yours." (Bava Kama 50b) 

The straightforward meaning of this story revolves around attitude to property. On the one hand, we need to respect public spaces and avoid littering or leaving items about that could hurt others. In addition, we should understand that our hold on our own property remains ever tenuous. From that perspective, the public domain belongs to a person in a deeper way that his own private property.

R. Reuven Katz, former chief rabbi of Petah Tikva, locates an additional metapohorical layer of meaning. According to R. Katz, the story deals with an educational decision. Some parents decide on complete withdrawl from the community and educate their children separately in an effort to avoid the problematic ideals of the broader community. They focus all their resources on their own children, ignore communal educational needs and think that these stones of poor ideals will be safely removed to the public domain. Such an approach is mistaken on two accounts. It ignores the responsibility we all have to the needs of others. Additionally, it is mistaken even with regard to one's own children as they will invariably be affected by the ideals outside of their house's doors. Total isolation from one's communal culture is not an option and therefore, one must also go about fighting to change the problematic aspects of that culture. The stones of culture on the street outside trip us up if we do not try to clear them.