[Avodah] KSA, MB, AhS, Chayei Adam and other codes

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:

> The question would be on heter iska -- if it works, why wasn't it done
> before?
> 
> One reason is that the heter iska is oly about a century or two newer
> than the ubiquity of banking on ribis.
> 
> A second may be that it's simply not that blatantly obvious.

It really isn't obvious, until after you've heard it.  As people put
their minds to problems, they come up with solutions.  Originally you
had only the heter for an actual iska, then over the generations
people came up with more generally useful arrangements, culminating
in the KSA's cheque-swapping scheme.  Once you've seen the KSA, why
use anything else, and why did nobody earlier come up with it?  I'd
say because it took a spark of creativity to think of it.

Now why doesn't that apply to hafka'at kidushin?  Because the gemara
that mentions it has been around for 1600 years, and every rishon and
achron has known it well.  Had that daf been lost, and only recently
rediscovered (and authenticated as being a genuine part of Shas), then
you could say that the concept never occurred to them.  But since they
knew of the option, why didn't they apply it in such cases?  The only
reasonable answer is that they considered and rejected it.  And we're
no smarter than they were.

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