[Avodah] T'uM

Fri Jul 11 15:48:11 PDT 2008

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

>
> To look at the cases already raised:
> Qiddushin and qinyan in general require shaveh kesef. I don't think the
> question of defining money applies to them directly. Except that...
>
> 1- Hilkhos Shabbos requires knowing when masa umatan occured
> and
> 2- Mi shepara distinguishes between payment with kesef the thing
>   bought.
>
> We also raised:
> 3- Mitzvos that are defined in sheqalim, such as pidyon haben and
>   machatzis hasheqel.

Corecton Kitzur SA re: pidyon  164:1. Further, Morechai Eliyahu Kitzur says
se Chasam Sofer 289. KSA says bransilber is kosher, Banotes are not. IIRC he
says shaveh kessaf IS OK which means shaveh kessa and banknotes are NOT one
and the same

>
>
> On Wed, Jul 09, 2008 at 12:10:13AM -0400, Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> :
> Back to RRW's post, he asks:
> : When is shava kessef kessef?
>
> I would have asked the reverse: When is kessef, kessef?
>
> On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:16:42 (EDT) RZS responded to a post from RRW:
> >> Fiat money, like life insruance is an astraction.
>
> > No more than silver-as-money was an abstraction in Chazal's time and
> > through most of history.

>
>
> It wasn't so much an abstraction as a standardization. For small business,
> you trusted the coinage and didn't bother weighing each one.
>
> How far can you drift from kesef in the sense of silver and still be
> talking about what chazal were talking about? I don't know if Chazal
> ever dealt with the homonimity of kesef, that it means both silver and
> money. The split between the two meanings came later.

Yes

>
>
> At the time Chazal wrote about mi shepara, coinage had its inherent
> value. A sheqel was a sheqel's weight of silver. If it wasn't in coin
> form, it had the same value. If a coin were shaved, it was worth less.

The Kolbon required for Shekalim proves that for that usage a coin HAD to
have an exact weight and that fiat was insufficient...

You are missing a period in history. BEFORE governments starting putting out
worthless money, individual BANKS put out ppaer moeny called banknotes [see
KSA above for an illustration] Banknotes were kinda like pre-payed traveler
Checques.

It was upon THIS existing structure that paper fiat money evolved.  But at
least in theory ther was metal behind it.  When I was a kid, every dollar
bill was a silver certificate, valid for $1.00 worth of silver. Until 1935
alL US currency was worth something in Gold.

>
>
>
> Then they introduced money that is more like stock -- proof of ownership
> of something of value. But by the later days of the gold backed dollar,
> the US didn't actually provide a means of getting to Fort Knox and
> putting in a claim for the gold. So even at that point, it wasn't too
> different than today's fiat money.

What they really did was took away real phsycial money [gold alone or gald &
Silver - see any artcile on Willam Jennings Brayn for the machlokes here]
and repalced it with banknotes.  But they are not banknotes from the BAnk fo
the United States, taht dies with Andrew Jackson. They are litearlly FEDERAL
RESERVE NOTES which are banknotes from a quasi public Quasi private bank
ssstem. It is not qite aanalogous to the "bank of Canada" which is a
creature of the Canadian Goverrnemt.  The Federal Reserve is much more
detached from te hactauly government of the US.

>
>
> I do not understand the discussion of fiat money as shetar chov.

Because fiat money evolved out of banknotes. Banknotes are not realyl
shtarie Chov they are more like Amex Traveler Checques but they are not
Governmetn money either

>
>
> I would consider that more abstract than the money actually be made
> of silver of that value, but that's neither here nor there; a possible
> debate over the meanings of the word "abstract".

Sotkc in a croporation is an abstraction. the point of options is that it is
an abstraction OF an abstraction.  Few people today relly have physical
stock certificates, but they were common at one time

My poitn is that if you have 2nd thoughts about the reality of mechiras
Hametz than fiat money is more-or-less simlarly flawed.

>
>
> To summarize:
>
> 1- Qinyan doesn't care whether or not you're using money, so for things
> like hilkhos Shabbos, the question isn't whether scrip is money, but
> whether one can make a qinyan before Shabbos without knowing until
> Shabbos what he's making the qinyan on....
>

>
> :-)BBii!
> -Micha
>
>

Again if a silver coin is worth $5.00 it is mamash $5.00
but an IOU for $5.00 is only a RAYA that there is a chov [shtarei chov] so
fiat money seems to be a gbray area in the middle. I think this trhead has
proved that fiat money is NOT like silver mamash and is not quite a private
promissory note either.

With a $5.00 silver coing you break it in half, and you have $2.50 of
silver. With a Federal Reerve note, if you can show that half of the bill
was damaged you will probably STILL get the full $5.00  forthe remaining
half because there is nothing intrinsic in the paper. [You will not get back
the full $5.00 in the case that the other half is still around for obvious
reasons.]

-- 
Kol Tuv / Best Regards,
RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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