[Avodah] heard re: negotiations on shabbas

[Zev Sero]

On 14/09/2011 4:34 PM, Gershon Dubin wrote:
> Yes;  across the board, although I'd be surprised to hear that most people buy a house in order to do hachnasas orchim.  However, buying a house in Eretz Yisrael is specifically permitted, as are shidduch negotiations and tzorchei tzibur.  The others, by extension.

Bear in mind that hachnosas orchim has a specific definition.  Inviting
ones friends and neighbours for a Shabbos meal is *not* hachnosas orchim
and does not justify leniencies on Shabbos.  Orchim are travellers, those
who have nowhere else to go, so housing and feeding them is a mitzvah,
which does indeed justify leniencies in hilchos Shabbos (see OC 308).
If one is buying a house as a hekdesh for this purpose then of course
one may do so on Shabbos, but buying a house in chu"l for oneself does
not cease to be "cheftzecha" just because one will do mitzvos inside it,
such as putting up a mezuzah, learning Torah, teaching ones children,
or hosting the occasional traveller.  The purpose of buying the house
is to live in it, and all those other mitzvos are a mere consequence
of that; one does them wherever one lives.  Living in the house itself
is not a mitzvah, so it is "cheftzecha".  In EY, OTOH, living in the
house is itself a mitzvah, and therefore not only may one negotiate to
buy it, but Chazal even permitted amira lenochri for this purpose.

-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
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		                            - Yitzchak Rabin