Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Halacha and Kabalas haTorah

So... you go to your local Jewish book store to get a new Shabbos yarmulka.  How do you actually acquire it?  Here is a hint: movable objects (as opposed to land, for example) can not be acquired with money.  They way you acquire your beautiful new Shabbos yarmulka is by picking it up.  Please don't run out right now to pick up a new yarmulka and expect to call out to the owner as you leave, "Michael Allen told me it was ok." It is true that the acquisition (ie, transfer of ownership) only happens when you lift your item, but the transfer will only happen if the current owner (or his agent) wants to transfer ownership to you.  The usual way to get him to want to transfer ownership to you, of course, is to give him money.

Just to be complete.  You give him money, he accepts the money, writes a receipt, has said receipt signed by two kosher witnesses, hands you the yarmulka, you take it and lift it at least one tefach.  At that point the yarmulka is now yours; Mazal Tov!  Even if he would now claim that his intent to transfer ownership to you was insincere, the sale is still good.  We say that his intent to transfer ownership to you was sincere at the time of the sale (as evidenced by the receipt and the fact that he took you money).  That's the usual case.  You know very well by this time in our relationship that exceptions are coming up.

Suppose he doesn't want to sell that particular yarmulka to you. Maybe he promised it to another customer.  Maybe he doesn't like selling yarmulkas on Thursdays.  You, however, really want that yarmulka a lot.  So you hang him by this thumbs till he accedes.  You cut him down and give him money and ... and ... you lift it at least one tefach.  It's a good sale.  What about the fact that he was pressured in to the sale?  There are lots of pressures: financial and being hung up by your thumbs just to name two.  (I absolutely am not making this stuff up; this is all Chazal.)

If, however, the seller tells the witnesses to the receipt that he was coerced, then the sale is not a good sale.  The fact that there was an announcement of the coercion can be used by the seller nullify the sale.  Unless the coercion was at gun point (according to some opinions).  When being threatened, then we say the intent to transfer ownership is quite sincere.  At gun point one is not having second thoughts; he very sincerely wants to remain in this world.

All of this is relevant to any situation of accepting the terms of a document.  Which is how this came up: Klal Yisrael was coerced by having a mountain over their heads and being told, "If you accept My Torah, good; if not, this is your grave."  So they said "na'ase v'nishma".  As we all know, because of that coercion, the Torah had to be re-accepted a 1,000 years later at the time of Mordechai and Esther with the famous statement, "kiblu v'kimu".  However, asks the Kesef Mishna, according to those who hold that coercion at gun point (or, in this case, mountain base) is a good acceptance; why did we need a new acceptance?

There is much to say on that.  For now, though, it think it is worth noting that sages throughout the centuries have debated this issue because there is a deep and unwavering principle: HaShem also follows halacha.  HaShem is pretty free and easy with physical law when the need arises, but not halacha.  Halacha is obviously not merely a bunch of rules; halacha is the guiding force in all aspects of reality.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק