[Avodah] Refusal to pay, BM 17a

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 08:04:02AM -0500, Yitzchak Schaffer wrote:
: On BM 17a Rav Zvid speaks of the following case: beis din orders a loveh
: to pay, he claims he paid, eidim testify he did not. Rashi fleshes out
: that the BD issued the order, then the malveh confronted the loveh before
: eidim, whereupon he /refused/ to pay...

: Sounds to me like Rashi sees the defiance itself as leading to a loss
: of ne'emanus. Two questions:
: - what exactly is it about defiance of BD that dictates the loss of ne'emanus?
: - why does he only lose it l'osah mamon?

They're both one question; your "second question" limits the range
of possible answers to the first. Whatever the sevara to answer your
question, it has to be related to the maaseh at hand, and not a general
loss of chezqas kashrus. Huchzaq kafran le'oso mamon ONLY.

The general direction many other rishonim go in (Rif, R' Chanael,
Rashba, Ran, Ritva) is the idea earlier in the sugya that having the case
brought to beis din makes the halvaah like one that had a shetar. (R'
Chananel says that no, the gemara's case is one where there actually is
a shetar, but I'm only citing him to show that's the general topic the
rishonim focus on.) I presume because of the "ki ha" comparing it to
a case of paying on a kesuvah.

Don't know how that fits Rashi's "ho'il ubifneihem hei'iz la'avor a"p
BD". I agree he does seem to go in a different direction, maybe something
focused about being in denial (kafran, c.f. kefirah) WRT this particular
debt. If he's in such denial that he would lie to BD once....

Interesting contrast to the same claim without contradictory eidim, where
we would use migo that he admitted the loan happened at all to *add*
to his ne'emanus.

Just thinking out loud while I browse sources...

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
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