[Avodah] T'uM

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
> R' Richard Wolpoe asked:
>> So how did Golden Acres get around the issue of
>> Muktzeh with scrip?
> 
> Perhaps they relied on Shmiras Shabbos K'hilchasa 29:25. See note 64
> there, which quotes Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach that "these coupons
> are merely a siman that the item was bought and paid for prior to
> Shabbos."
> 
> It sounds to me like one does not use the scrip as money, to make a
> new kinyan, exchanging the scrip for the food. Rather, the scrip is
> merely evidence that the kinyan (in a breira way, I suppose, not
> knowing exactly which package one would take on Shabbos) was already
> done before Shabbos.

That would only work if these were coupons that could only be exchanged
for one specific kind of thing.  From RRW's description it sounds like
we are talking about actual scrip, not tokens, i.e. it could be exchanged
for *anything*, both in the canteen and in private transactions between
people; the examples he gave were "extra wine" and "a baby sitter".
I don't see how that could work.  But I don't know the details of the
metziut, let alone of the heter, or who stood behind it.


> Following the distinction I pointed out in previous posts, it seems to
> me that this logic would solve the problem of the scrip being money and
> Muktzeh Machmas Gufo. But I do not see how it would solve the Muktzeh
> Machmas Chisaron Kis aspect, since one would be very careful with such
> scrip, just with other receipts - or even more so.

*If* we're talking about a coupon that can only be exchanged for a bottle
of wine, then perhaps we can say that it should be no more muktzeh than
that bottle itself would be.  Imagine if someone invented a way to
compress a bottle of wine into a shape, size, and weight that could
conveniently be carried in ones pocket, only to be unfolded and expanded
into its normal form when it was wanted.  The small bottle would not be
muktzeh any more than the big one.  Such a coupon system essentially
does that.  But that doesn't seem to be what we're talking about here.

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