Sotah, Chapter 9, Mishnah 3. In the previous sections we dealt with the mitzvah of the eglah arufah and with the measuring done in order to determine which city is closest to a corpse that was found. Although one might have thought that our Mishnah comes to discuss the measuring itself, that is not the case: the measuring will be discussed in the next Mishnah, where it is explained from which part of the body one measures.
A Meis Mitzvah Acquires Its Place:
Our Mishnah deals with a concept instituted by Yehoshua when Israel entered the Land of Israel, as one of the conditions he stipulated: a meis mitzvah - a corpse that has no one to bury it - acquires its place. That is, it has monetary ownership of the spot where it was found, and by virtue of that ownership it may be buried there.
The Case in the Mishnah:
The question the Mishnah addresses is this: when the corpse was found in two parts, which of them is the primary one? The words of the Mishnah: "nimtza rosho b'makom echad v'gufo b'makom acher" - the head was found in one place and the body in another place. The question is where the person actually died: did the body fall in the place where it was found, with the head rolling a little further away, or did the head in fact fall in its place, and it was the body that moved because of the convulsions before death?
The Dispute Between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva:
"molichin harosh etzel haguf, divrei Rabbi Eliezer" - in his view the body fell in its place and it was the head that rolled, and therefore the head is buried in the place where the body was found. The area that the corpse acquires, in which it took hold, as it were, in order to be buried, is the place where he was killed - that is, the place where the body was found and not the place where the head was found - and the head is brought there.
"Rabbi Akiva omer: haguf etzel harosh" - Rabbi Akiva disagrees and holds that the head fell in the place where it was found, and it was the body that rolled and moved before it fell, and therefore the body is brought to the head.
In summary: in this Mishnah we learned the enactment of Yehoshua upon entering the Land, that a meis mitzvah acquires its place and gains monetary ownership of it in order to be buried there, and the dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva regarding a corpse found in two parts: according to Rabbi Eliezer the place of the body is the place of the killing, and the head is brought to it, while according to Rabbi Akiva the place of the head is the primary one, and the body is brought to it.
In the next Mishnah we will deal with the measuring itself - from which part of the body one measures in order to determine the closest city.