It was just a few minutes to Shabbos, and Tuvia decided to quickly mop the floor in the Yeshiva dormitory in honor of Shabbos. A few minutes later, Lipa came running down the hallway to catch the minyan on time and slipped on leftover bleach.
Tuvia heard someone fall and ran to the hall. He saw Lipa struggling to get up from the puddle with his clothes soaked with bleach and totally ruined.
Tuvia felt really bad and asked Lipa, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Lipa smiled and said half-laughing: “I'm okay, just my new Shabbos clothes are not okay.”
Tuvia said, “I'm happy you're okay, Baruch Hashem. As for your ruined clothes, I'll pay for the damage.”
But Lipa shook his head no. “Maybe I should have watched where I was going. I don't want to take money if I don't truly deserve it.”
Tuvia said, “I hear you, but I also don't want to keep money if you really do deserve it. Are you okay?”
Halachic Discussion
1) Spilling bleach in a public place is considered making a pit, and the Torah holds a person responsible for this and must pay.
2) Shach (Choshen Mishpat 427b) also says that a person usually does not look carefully where he walks. So Lipa didn't do anything wrong and it seems that Tuvia should have been more careful about leaving bleach, which is considered a pit, and seems he would need to pay Lipa.
However, our case is different: The Torah only holds one responsible to pay for leaving a pit open and he damaged a person or animal; but if an item, clothing, or such things fall in, the person isn't responsible to pay for it (see Shach Choshen Mishpat 427:2b).
In our case, since it was only the clothing that got damaged, according to halacha, Beis Din cannot tell him to pay.
3) The Rav Baruch Ber (Birchas Shmuel, Bava Kamma 2:2) holds that only Beis Din in this world can't obligate one to pay for clothing, but in heaven one is still guilty, and one should pay back to avoid guilt in heaven. The Chazon Ish (Bava Kamma 2:7) disagrees and says that there could be a possibility that one doesn't need to pay back anything and isn't guilty in heaven either.
In short: But since he could have blinded someone and was not very responsible by leaving a large amount of bleach on the floor; therefore, it's better that he pay back.
He shouldn't be guilty in heaven.
(What's the lesson? Rav Yisroel Salanter took this rule of making a pit in public, and said that if someone walks around with a sad face, it's considered a public pit, and one should know that this is also considered damaging to people.)
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