Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Ice Scraper

January 22, 2026

Q Someone brushed against a plate of cake I was holding at a kiddush and got chocolate icing on his tallis, but he didn’t notice at the time. Do I have to notify him that I’m the culprit?

A The key determinant of liability for such inadvertent damage is which of you was in motion. If your cake was stationary and he moved into it, you are exempt. If you moved the cake into his tallis, you are liable. If you were both moving, you are exempt (see Tur Choshen Mishpat 378).

If the kiddush was so formal that standing with a plate of cake would be considered inappropriate, you are liable even if you didn’t move (similar to the case in Bava Kama 31a).

If instead of holding the cake you had put it on a chair, that would be negligent. But if someone sat on it, it would be in the category of bor (a pit, i.e., damage done by a stationary obstacle), which has an exemption for damage to keilim (utensils, which would include a tallis). Some, like the Birkas Shmuel (Bava Kama 2:2), hold that the exemption is only bedinei adam (under the laws of man), but bedinei Shamayim (under the laws of Heaven), one is indeed liable. Others incline toward the view that the exemption is even bedinei Shamayim (Chazon Ish Bava Kama 2:7).

Some say that staining a garment—provided that the stain can be removed—is not a genuine hezek but a grama, because there is only the indirect imposition of the cost of cleaning. While grama is usually chayav bedinei Shamayim, unintentional damage like this is different (Minchas Pitim 385:3; see also Pis’chei Choshen Nezikin 3:39). But the consensus of the poskim appears to be that it is actual hezek.

Whether you are liable bedinei adam or bedinei Shamayim, you must notify the victim. Where you are not liable, you need not inform him.