[Avodah] Heter mechira

[Zev Sero]

Michael Makovi wrote:
>> R' EMT wrote:

>> if, during Pesach, the purchaser should come to our door with his
>> shtar in hand and ask to take possession of the items sold to him,
>> I imagine that we would turn them over.

> In fact, this happened on a certain Israeli kibbutz; the Arab drove up
> with a convoy of cargo trucks, and they took *everything*. And they
> didn't stop him. The rabbi of the kibbutz decided to do a "real" sale,
> and so he found a real live Arab, and this is what happened.

And?  Was there a problem?  Why would anyone object to this?


>> Now imagine that the sheik who purchased EY comes to an olive grove
>> during Pesach and tells the once and future owner that he is going
>> to have all the trees chopped down, then and there, and pave it over
>> for a parking lot.  Do you imagine that the sellers would stand idly
>> by and let him do it?  If not, then again his refusal indicates that
>> the sale was never meant.
 
> So just as you sell your chometz to a gentile whom you trust to not do
> anything like what happened to the kibbutz, so too, you sell EY to a
> gentile whom you trust to not do anything funny. Maybe sell EY to a
> pizza boy in NY, for example.

Not the point.

1. There is no need to "trust" the goy not to take the chametz.  If he
decides to take it and not sell it back, let him.  Most sellers would
rather have the money anyway.

2. If the goy came to chop down the trees, I have little doubt that the
farmer *would not let him*, would call the police, and the Arab would
have to go to court to enforce his rights.  (Which would make for an
interesting test of the Israeli judiciary.)  It's true that "Devarim
shebelev einam devarim", but that principle has limits; if the context
makes it obvious that there was no meeting of the minds then it's void
(e.g. a sale that takes place on stage, in front of thousands of
witnesses, would still be void if it's in the script).  When it's
obvious that the seller would react like this to the buyer taking
possession of the property, how real can the sale be?

3. I've said this before: if I were the king of Saudi Arabia, I'd
find the Arab who owns all the farmland in EY, and give him enough
money to sell me the land, and then I'd go to the Israeli Bagatz
and demand my rights.  Is there an Arab who'd refuse the money?

4. BTW, if the goy takes the chametz and doesn't pay, he can be sued
for the money, but the chametz is still his.  His ownership doesn't
depend on his payment.  And in the forms I've seen there's a Jewish
arev kablan, so the owner of the chametz won't even have to sue the
goy; he will go after the AK for payment, and the AK will sue the goy.
If the heter mechira is done in the same way, then if my intention was
simply to cause disruption I wouldn't even need the Saudi billions.
A mere million or two to bribe the "trustworthy" original purchaser
(that pizza boy in NY, say), and if the farmers want their land back
they'll have to first go to the AK for payment, then he'll have to
sue the original purchaser, who will then have to sue me, and
eventually they can take the land as payment for the debt, but that
will take considerable time, by which time I can have paved over the
fields and built "settlements" for hundreds of thousands of Arabs.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas