[Avodah] kitniyot

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 03:12:10PM +0300, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: On a slightly different matter it is generally assumed that a store can
: sell its chametz as it is hefsed merubah. OTOH there are communities that
: don't buy chametz that has been sold.  Don't these contradict each other?

Don't buy all chameitz that has been sold, or all chameitz that was
"sold" by a store than then proceeded to leave it on the shelves and
sell individually over Pesach?

The latter is the nearest I've seen in my experience to such communities.

After all, it's more ready to conclude that the initial sale of all
chameitz was a meaningless asmachta, and not a real sale than it is to
conclude the storeowners were selling someone else's merchandise and
stealing the profits.

But if you mean that people aren't supposed to buy properly sold chameitz,
yes that makes no sense -- the storeowner still suffers a hefsed merubah,
just days later.

In any case, I do not think we still hold that mechiras chameitz requires
the hefsed to be merubah. OTOH, it's more than merely a "crazy chumerah",
as Zev puts it. According to the Bach (OC 448 "ve'im") mechiras chameitz
of the sort where nothing actually is moved to space the nakhri already
owns was originally promulgated as a widespread practice specifically
for "yayin saraf" dealers, and only because they can't move their full
merchandise. (The actual mechanism is in the Tosefta, Pesachim 2:6.)
Resisting growth of a heter to include boxes we could just throw into
the trunk of our car is quite different than "crazy chumerah".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?