daf bit: Bava Metzia 108

[cellio]

If somebody wishes to sell his field, the talmud applies a law of preemption, giving his neighbors the right of first refusal. This is because it is easier to maintain adjacent fields, so there is more benefit to a neighbor getting a double field than there is to having two separately-owned fields. The g'mara on today's daf discusses several cases in which preemption does not apply, including the following:

If a stranger wishes to purchase the land to build houses, and the abutting neighbor wants the land for sowing, habitation is more important and there is no preemption. If a rocky ridge or a plantation of young palm trees lies between the fields, we consider: if the abutting neighbor can enter the field even with a single furrow, i.e. there is some place along the boundary where they connect and he could plow through, then the neighbor can preempt the sale, but if not, not. And if a field has four neighbors and one forestalls the others, it is valid, but if they all come together to buy, the field is divided along the diagonals (so everybody gets a wedge). (108b)

There is a diagram on the page of the division into four.

Comments

[damont]

In this day and age of tract mansions and sprawl, I have to wonder if I could still believe that buying a field to build houses on it really should take precedence. :-P

[cellio]

Yeah, I don't think that's the case the rabbis had in mind. :-) I wonder how they would rule today. (The talmud is not the last word on things.)