[Avodah] Heter mechira

[Mike Miller]

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 10:17 PM, Ben Waxman <ben1456 at zahav.net.il> wrote:
> This sounds nice but I can not see how this would work in practice. Someone
> is going to go and collect all the contracts, go to people's houses and
> assess the value?

Perhaps. It also depends on the community; how many people are
selling, what they're selling, and how mehudar (aka less meikel...)
things can be. Our shul's mechiras chometz requests a price up front
for each class of food (cereals: 50 NIS. liquor: 300 NIS. vineger: 10
NIS, etc), and everything is packaged up and moved to a machsan which
is rented by the goy for the duration of the chag (the goy also does a
kinyan hagba'ah before pesach).

After Pesach, if the goy wants to carry through... why not. FWIW, it
once happened that the goy refused a price that was too high, and the
Rav spent a good chunk of the day before Erev Pesach tracking down the
seller to see if he'd lower his price....

-- Mike Miller
Ramat Bet Shemesh