Comentario sobre Baba Batra 6:7
מִי שֶׁהָיְתָה דֶרֶךְ הָרַבִּים עוֹבֶרֶת בְּתוֹךְ שָׂדֵהוּ, נְטָלָהּ וְנָתַן לָהֶם מִן הַצַּד, מַה שֶּׁנָּתַן נָתַן, וְשֶׁלּוֹ לֹא הִגִּיעוֹ. דֶּרֶךְ הַיָּחִיד, אַרְבַּע אַמּוֹת. דֶּרֶךְ הָרַבִּים, שֵׁשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה אַמָּה. דֶּרֶךְ הַמֶּלֶךְ, אֵין לָהּ שִׁעוּר. דֶּרֶךְ הַקֶּבֶר, אֵין לָהּ שִׁעוּר. הַמַּעֲמָד, דַּיָּנֵי צִפּוֹרִי אָמְרוּ, בֵּית אַרְבַּעַת קַבִּין:
Si un camino público [es decir, uno siempre usado por el público] pasa por el campo de uno —Si lo tomó y les dio uno a un lado, lo que él dio se da y (lo que tomó) por sí mismo no se revierte a él. [Y el público (ahora) tiene dos caminos, que se rige: "Un camino en poder del público no puede ser subvertido".] Un camino privado es de cuatro codos. [es decir, si uno le vende a su vecino un camino en medio de su campo, debe darle (al menos) cuatro codos. Un camino público es de dieciséis codos. El camino del rey no tiene límites. [Porque un rey puede "romper vallas" delante de él para abrirse camino.] El camino [en el que se lleva] a la tumba no tiene límites. [Esta es una ordenanza rabínica de respeto por los muertos. No es que los que acompañan al cuerpo puedan "romper las cercas", como puede hacerlo un rey, pero pueden pasar por encima de la tierra sembrada y no necesitan desviarse hacia un lado.] de Sepphoris dice: (Debe darle al menos un área de cuatro kabin [es decir, treinta y tres codos y dos anchos de mano de ancho por cincuenta codos de largo. En el lugar del ma'amad (literalmente, "de pie") , ejecutarían siete clasificaciones y siete sesiones cuando regresaran de enterrar a los muertos, correspondientes a las siete "Vanidades" al principio del libro de Koheleth.]
Bartenura on Mishnah Bava Batra
English Explanation of Mishnah Bava Batra
A private path is four cubits. A public path is sixteen cubits. The king’s path has no prescribed measure. The path to a grave has no prescribed measure. The halting places, according to the judges of Tzippori, should be four kab’s space of ground.
Mishnah seven deals with laws concerning the building and the selling of private and public paths.
In the scenario presented in section one a person had a path that passed through the middle of his field and decided that he would take that path and use it as part of his field and he would create a different public path on the side of his field. According to the mishnah the seizure of the public path is invalid and the public may continue to use the path in the middle of the field. In addition, the path given on the side of the field becomes public property, such that the public may also use that path.
The remainder of the mishnah standardizes the sizes of paths for the purposes of selling and buying. A private path is four cubits (about 2 meters) wide and a public path is 16 cubits (8 meters) wide. Therefore if a person were to sell a private path he would be selling a four cubit path, and if he sold a public path he would have sold a 16 cubit path. The mishnah additionally informs us that a king’s procession passing through another person’s field is permitted to take as wide of a path as needed. So too, if a funeral procession passes, the procession may cut as wide of a path as needed. Finally, we learn that halting places, which were places on the path of the funeral procession, where the mourners would stop in the course of a funeral procession in order to eulogize the dead, were generally four kab big (25 meters by 17 meters). If a person sold a “halting place” to another person this is the size of the land sold.