[Avodah] Is there any issur here al pi halacha? - New York man pleads guilty to selling Israeli human organs

[Zev Sero]

On 4/11/2011 11:11 AM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 03:23:13PM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
> : Not only that, but even if nobody is offering money and you are donating
> : your water, you can give it to whomever you like. "Ve'ish es kodoshov lo
> : yihyu".  There are no rules...

No, I wrote that.  If RJR were to use standard quoting conventions, this
sort of confusion wouldn't happen.

> I therefore assume you both are relying on a poetic extension of Rashi's
> point (chazal's point as quoted by Rashi) -- a person may choose to give
> *tzedaqah* to whomever he wants.

It's not poetic, it's exactly the same principle, only even stronger.
The Torah tells us that even that which you have to give remains your
property until you give it, and thus you have the right to choose the
recipient.  Kal vachomer that which you have no obligation to give in
the first place remains yours even after you've decided to give it away,
and you can choose the recipient.  And kal vachomer ben beno shel kal
vachomer that if you haven't yet decided to give it away you can choose
to sell it instead.  This is not a drasha, it's what the pasuk means.


> An exteme example: May I give a formerly wealthy person his limo as a
> "dei machsero" when I know of a poor person who hasn't eaten in 3 days
> and is omeid lamus?

Is this latter person "lefanai"?  May I choose that moment not to give
anything at all to either of them?  Then I can also choose to whom to
give it.  Only the public kupah, which belongs to everybody, must
therefore follow objective rules.

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin