Exodus 21:28 "And his flesh shall not be eaten"

One day, Sammy found an old penknife in the alley. He brought it home and was busy cleaning the blade when his mother noticed what he was doing.

"Where did you get that from?", she asked in dismay.

"Outside," answered Sammy. "I'll never be able to find the owner and he probably doesn't even want this old thing!"

"I agree!", nodded his mother. "Who would want an old and rusty penknife? But I still don't want it in the house. It's dangerous and you could hurt yourself or someone else with it. It's going straight into the garbage!"

When something belongs to us we are responsible for it and for how it is used.

In this Negative Mitzvah the Torah describes a case where an ox kills a person. Certain rules are then applied to determine if the ox is to be considered a "killer ox" and must, therefore, be put to death because it is dangerous and may cause even more damage.

This Negative Mitzvah forbids us to eat from the meat of such an ox, even if it is slaughtered properly when it is killed.