Resources for Kesubos daf 41
1. The משנה says that a person doesn’t pay קנס if they admit to having done the איסור or caused the נזק. The גמרא says later that nowadays we aren’t גובה any קנס since we don’t have a ב"ד סמוכים. Nonetheless, if the ניזק took the קנס anyway then we don’t take it away from him. The תוספות הרא"ש and ריטב"א say that since that we can never be גובה קנס nowadays and this will cause a הפסד to people we put the מזיק in חרם until he pays an amount that בּ"ד feels is sufficient to be מפייס the person.
There are several aspects of קנס that seem to be unclear. First, how does the פּטור of מודה בקנס that our משנה discusses work exactly? The ראשונים explain that it is a דבר פּשוט that if the מזיק is מודה in ב"ד then you can’t be תופס anymore since the whole סיבת החיוב is gone. However, they argue about if being מודה helps nowadays at all to prevent תפיסה. In other words, if someone admits to a קנס nowadays where this is no ב"ד סמוכים anyway, does it count as a הודאה such that תפיסה won’t work or do we say that being מודה requires a real ב"ד to register the הודאה so the הודאה nowadays is meaningless. The רא"ש in ב"ק פּרק א׳ סימן כ brings the ראב"ד who says that הודאה nowadays is valid and if the מזיק does so he will be פּטור. His proof is that the גמרא there says that ר"ג blinded his עבד yet the עבד did not go free since there were no עדים who saw it happen. Why couldn’t the עבד be תופס himself and go free? It must be that since ר"ג was מודה, תפיסה won’t help. However, the רמב"ן disagrees and says that the הודאה doesn’t work nowadays and the תפיסה would work, and the case of טבי עבד ר"ג was a case where the הודאה was done outside of בּ"ד so it wasn’t valid.
The קובץ שיעורים in חלק ב סימן י"ג asks the following חקירה: when exactly does the חיוב to pay the קנס get generated? Is it when you do the act of damage or when ב"ד paskens that you did it and that you owe money? He brings רבי עקיבא איגר who says that one of the key differences between ממון and קנס is that by ממון you only need עדים to prove what happened but the חיוב to pay is חל immediately whereas by קנס the חיוב doesn’t begin until there is a גמר דין. Moreover, there isn’t even a חיוב לצאת ידי שמים to pay the קנס as evinced by the case of ר"ג who didn’t free his עבד. However, רב אלחנן זצ"ל himself disagrees and says the חיוב is חל immediately after the damage occurs. One proof he brings is that the רא"ש mentioned above quotes our גמרא discussing nowadays when we cant be גובה קנס and says that קנס is a real חיוב on the person; we just don’t have a ב"דin בבל that can be גובה it. It sounds like the חיוב is חל even now without a ב"ד but it cant be collected. To explain this, ב אלחנן זצ"ל brings the רמב"ם who says that שביעית is not משמט a קנס since that is a חיוב on the מזיק and not something owed to the ניזק. In other words, קנס is an עונש and not a חיוב ממון like a loan. Therefore, even though the חיוב is certainly חל immediately it doesn’t count as an עונש if no one forced him to do it. So if ב"ד cant be כופה him then there is no way for him to get that עונש. Therefore, even though there is a חיוב immediately on him to pay in principle, there is no need even לצאת ידי שמים to pay it without a ב"ד enforcing it since that won’t count as getting the עונש.
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