You have to learn that anything that you borrow and you don’t use it in the proper manner that it’s intended to be used for, you’re a gazlan. You’re a thief. Suppose you borrow my screwdriver and you use it as a chisel to open boxes. He didn’t tell you it’s a chisel! A screwdriver is for a screwdriver, not a chisel, and if you use it incorrectly, you have no reshus. Anything you use incorrectly is a sho’el b’lo reshus. You’re a gazlan. It’s like stealing it.
You think you can just borrow my sefer without asking? Maybe not. Because a sefer, as you turn the pages, the pages tear. I have to give you permission to learn my sefer. That’s the halacha. A tallis, if he’s not finicky and he doesn’t mind the perspiration from your neck on his tallis — in the olden days most people didn’t mind, so you could borrow his tallis. Otherwise, you have to watch out! If he doesn’t like it, you can’t borrow his tallis! He doesn’t like the idea of other people’s sweat on his head.
So here’s a frum Jew but he never learned how important it is to care about other people. So he’s sitting and he sticks his foot out into the aisle. That’s a public peril. Along comes a young lady tripping fancily on her high heels and she slips and she breaks her leg over your shoe. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” he says, “I didn’t intend it!”
But if he had learned Bava Kamma, he would have learned about the principle of bor birshus harabim. You cannot dig a pit in a public thoroughfare or put any public encumbrance, anything that will cause people to stumble. You can’t even stick your elbow out in the aisle. Are you doing it right now? Watch out! It’s a sin! It’s a sin to cause people to stumble! And when you walk up the stairs of your house, see if the children left skates or anything else on the steps because the visitors might go for a ride to the hospital.
