[Avodah] prozbul & heter iska (Michael Makovi)

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 03:05:27PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:

> : How about Devarim Shebelev Einam Devarim.  When you make a kinyan with
> : sudar, kesef, shtar, and tekiat kaf (the sale I observed this year used
> : all four), it's hard to say "I didn't mean it"

> But isn't that true of any asmachta?

AIUI asmachta is entirely different.  An asmachta is when the commitment
you made is conditioned on some event that you are sure will not happen.

Any couple that gets married is surely confident that they will make it
work, and will stay together for life.  However realistically they
ponder the odds, if they're not sure in their hearts that their marriage
will be permanent they probably shouldn't be getting married at all.

Similarly someone who bets on a horse is sure in his heart that his
horse will win, or his hand is sure to beat anything the other players
might have, or his stock will become more valuable, and thus when he
promises to pay money if that doesn't happen he means it, there's no
devarim shebelev, but he doesn't mean it.  To him it's like saying
"I'll give you a million dollars if you can prove that 2+2=5, or if
the sun rises in the west tomorrow".

So I don't see how it's relevant to mechirat chametz.  One can't even
say that he's secretly conditioning the sale on the buyer not taking
possession of the chametz, because in fact he'd be quite happy for
that to happen.  If the buyer were to show up at the supermarket's
loading dock with a truck and start hauling away the entire stock,
the seller would be delighted, because he's just moved a whole lot of
inventory that he thought he was going to have to buy back and sell
the hard way.  So where's the asmachta?

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