parsha bit: Emor

[cellio]

This week's parsha repeats the law (first given in Mishpatim) about compensation for injuries: eye for eye, hand for hand, foot for foot. The rabbis interpreted this as financial compensation, not literally. How was the amount of money computed? There were five factors: depreciation in value if the victim were to be sold as a slave, pain, the cost of medical treatment, lost earnings while recovering, and "degradation", which was based on the station of the victim and the offender. (Bava Kamma 83b, mishna to chapter 8)