Baba Kama 8:5-6
Baba Kama 8:5
If a person strikes one of his parents and he does make a wound, or if one person wounds another on Shabbos, he is exempt from all forms of payment because it’s now a capital matter. If a person injures his own non-Jewish servant, he is exempt from paying damages.
Baba Kama 8:6
If one person punches another, he must pay him a sela (i.e., half a dinar) for embarrassment. Rabbi Yehuda quotes Rabbi Yosi HaGlili that one must pay a maneh (i.e., 100 dinar). For slapping someone, one pays 200 zuz (which is the same as 200 dinar); for a back-handed slap, 400 zuz. If he pulled someone’s ear, pulled out some hair or spit on him, or if he ripped off a man’s cloak or uncovered a woman’s head in public, he pays 400 zuz. The general principle is that one pays the penalty for embarrassment according to the honor due the one who was embarrassed. Rabbi Akiva says that even the poorest person in Israel is considered like a prominent person who has undergone a financial reversal. This is because we are all the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. It once occurred that a man uncovered a woman’s head in public. Rabbi Akiva heard the case and fined the man 400 zuz. The offender asked for time to raise the money, which was granted. The man then watched the woman at the entry to her courtyard, where he broke a jug containing a very small amount of oil. The woman uncovered her head in order to rub the oil into her hair (so we see she was willing to uncover her hair in public for a trifling amount). The man had arranged for witnesses, whom he brought back to Rabbi Akiva, complaining that the woman clearly didn’t deserve so large a settlement. Rabbi Akiva dismissed the man’s claim saying that if a person injures himself – even though it is prohibited – he pays no fine but others must pay for injuring him. Similarly, if a person wastefully cuts down his own plants – even though it is prohibited – he pays no fine but others must pay for cutting down his plants. (Accordingly, one can choose to embarrass himself but that is not license for others to do so.)