[Avodah] Ribis to a non-Jew (was: Lashon Hara about a non-Jew)

[Doron Beckerman]

Michael Makovi writes:

>>Charging interest being an okay thing, I would question. Given that
money in the time of the Torah's giving was primarily for emergency
situations and not for ordinary daily spending (and thus charging
interest would be to charge someone in davka the time of his financial
struggles), and given that it is prohibited (at least Rabbinically) to
pay interest to a gentile (though we follow Tosoafot in not keeping
this prohibition anymore), it seems difficult to say that charging
interest is morally fine. <,

There cannot be a Rabbinic prohibition charging interest to a non-Jew, as
the famous Taz says that Chachamim cannot prohibit something openly
permitted by the Torah.

See the Torah Temimah to Devarim 23:21 s.v. Omnam explaining why charging
interest is indeed perfectly morally fine.


>>As for finding lost objects: to find and keep is the ordinary moral
way? Can one honestly suggest that there is no intrinsic moral problem
with finding and keeping? Is this idea not davka what the Torah comes
to tell us is false?  <<

This may depend on the Machlokes Rashi and Rambam on how to explain the
prohibition of returning an Aveidah to a non-Jew, see Sanhedrin 76b and Tur
Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 266:1
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080102/bca2867b/attachment-0001.htm>