רשות הרבים ורשות היחיד - המקום הפרטי והמקום הציבורי

What is the incident with a young girl? One time I was walking along the path, and the path passed through a field, and I was walking on it. A certain young girl said to me: My Rabbi, isn’t this a field? One should not walk through a field, so as not to damage the crops growing there. I said to her: Isn’t it a well-trodden path in the field, across which one is permitted to walk? She said to me: Robbers like you have trodden it. In other words, it previously had been prohibited to walk through this field, and it is only due to people such as you, who paid no attention to the prohibition, that a path has been cut across it. Thus, the young girl defeated Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya in a debate.

§ The Sages taught: A person should not throw stones from his property into the public domain. An incident occurred involving a certain individual who was throwing stones from his property into the public domain, and a certain pious man found him. The latter said to him: Lowlife [reika], for what reason are you throwing stones from property that is not yours into your property? The man mocked him, as he did not understand what he meant, as the property from which he was throwing stones was his. Some days later, he was forced to sell his field from which he had thrown the stones. And he was walking in the same public domain into which he had thrown them, and he stumbled on those same stones. He said: That pious man said it well to me when he said: For what reason are you throwing stones from property that is not yours into your own property, since that property no longer belongs to me, and only the public domain remains mine to use.

Hezkiya taught (Jeremiah 50:17): "Israel are scattered sheep" - why are Israel likened to a sheep? Just as a sheep, when hurt on its head or some other body part, all of its body parts feel it. So it is with Israel when one of them sins and everyone feels it. (Numbers 16:22): "When one man sins [will You be wrathful with the whole community]." Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught a parable: Men were on a ship. One of them took a drill and started drilling underneath him. The others said to him: What are sitting and doing?! He replied: What do you care. Is this not underneath my area that I am drilling?! They said to him: But the water will rise and flood us all on this ship. This is as Iyob said (Job 19:4): "If indeed I have erred, my error remains with me." But his friends said to him (Job 34:37): "He adds transgression to his sin; he extends it among us." [The men on the ship said]: You extend your sins among us. Rabbi Elasa said: a gentile asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karha: In your Torah, it is written (Exodus 23:2): "After the multitude will you side." We are more numerous than you, so why don't you become like us in practicing idolatry? He [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karha] said to him: Do you have children? He replied: You reminded me of my troubles. He asked: Why? [The gentile] said: I have many children. When they sit at my table, this one blesses to this god and that one blesses to that god, and they don't get up from the table until they wrack each other's brains. He [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karha] said: Do you settle [the arguments] with them? He said: No. He [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karha] said: Before you make us agree with you, find agreement with your own children! [The gentile] was spurned and went away. After he left [Rabbi Yehoshua ben Karha's] students said to him: Rabbi! You pushed him away like a broken reed, but what would you answer for us? He said to them: Six souls are about written [in the Torah] about Esau, and "souls" [nefashot] is written in the plural, as stated (Genesis 36:6): "Esau took his wives, his sons and daughters, and all the souls of his household." For Yaakov, however, there were seventy souls, and soul [nefesh] is written [in the Torah] in the singular. As it is stated (Exodus 1:5): "And all of the people [nefesh] that were of Jacob's issue, etc." Because Esau worshipped many gods, it is written many "souls," but for Yaakov--who worshipped one God--it is written one soul, "And all of the people [nefesh], etc."