[Avodah] Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New

[Rich, Joel]

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RMB wrote:

The rich person who has money is like the one person in the desert who
has the canteen. As R' Aqiva says, "vechei achikha imakh" -- if it isn't
going to be "imakh", there is no obligation of "vechei".

This is why I focused the question not on the buyer, but on the broker.
The broker's position is more like a health care provider or the public
kupah, who have halakhos of triage.
CM adds:

I too was thinking along similar lines. From the perspective of  the buyer, the principle of chayecha kodmin should apply. He (as RMB wrote) is the man with the only canteen of water in the desert. Our case is about the broker which in terms of the moshol used would be three people in the desert, a rich man, a poor man and one with two canteens of water so he could only save either the rich man or the poor man but not both. May he sell the second canteen to the rich man (the first is for himself [chayecha kodmin]).

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It’s not so clear to me that “ownership”  is the issue. For example,  a poor talmid chacham/kohain and a wealthy woman/convert/am haaretz are drowning and you can only save one, the wealthy one offers a million dollars to save them. Can you do halachically do that?  The poskim argue over the 3 people in the desert where one has water but doesn’t need it – does he give it to one of the others to live or must they split it and die? What if there are only 2 people and the one grabs the water and is koneh it through shinui?...

The beat goes on.

KT
Joel Rich
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