[Avodah] money and halakhah

[Yitzhak Grossman]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:20:52 -0400
Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 07:28:19PM -0400, Yitzhak Grossman wrote:
> : All citations are from my notes; I have not verified most of them.
> 
> The AhS, for example, had to be speaking of metal-backed currency, not
> fiat currency. I don't know everyone you quote, but we could eliminate
> the majority of the list.

I don't understand exactly what you mean, but you ought not to
'eliminate the majority of the list' without taking the trouble to
actually read them. 

> A shetar which says "the owner has a sheqel of silver sitting in Fort
> Knox" is more like giving the actual sheqel of silver (to speak of kesef
> in the literal sense, but gold would be no different) than giving a
> piece of paper that had value because people decided you can exchange
> it for value.

Hasam Sofer (YD 134) clearly says that 'banknotes' derive their value
from government fiat, not from their convertibility into metal, from
which he infers that they are in the Halachic category of 'matbea' as
opposed to 'shtaros'.

He proves his contention that their value derives from government fiat
by pointing out that their assigned value is sometimes greater than
purely economic considerations, based on their convertibility, would
dictate.

> -Micha

Yitzhak
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