Q&A: Sending Purim Gifts with Sabbatical-Year Produce
Sending Purim Gifts with Sabbatical-Year Produce
Question
Greetings and blessings to the great Gaon, may he live long and well!
Is it possible to fulfill the commandment of sending Purim gifts with Sabbatical-year produce [and the halakhic decisors have already discussed this]? Now, in Shevi’it (8:8) we learned: “One may not bring the bird-offerings of male zavim, female zavot, or women after childbirth from the proceeds of Sabbatical-year produce.”
And in Mishnat Yosef (on tractate Shevi’it there) he brought the explanation for the reason for the prohibition: because this is considered paying one’s debt with the proceeds of Sabbatical-year produce. That is, anything one is obligated to give, one may not give from Sabbatical-year produce, since he is paying his debt with the proceeds of Sabbatical-year produce. And so too in Imrei Yosher (part 1, siman 100). According to this, every commandment for which one must give from his assets is considered debt payment, and the same should apply to the commandment of sending Purim gifts, as Mishnat Yosef wrote (part 1, siman 27).
But perhaps one could argue the opposite: in that Mishnah we find only a commandment regarding which his assets are actually encumbered for this, so that it is an obligation on his property and he is paying it off with the proceeds of Sabbatical-year produce. We rule (Kiddushin 13b) that if a woman died, the heirs must bring her burnt-offering, because the lien is of Torah origin; and we also rule that pledges may be taken for sin-offerings. So through Sabbatical-year produce he is effectively removing the lien from his assets. But the commandment of sending Purim gifts is like ordinary commandments, except that the form of the commandment is by giving to one’s fellow; perhaps that is not called paying a debt, but rather fulfilling a commandment.
Thank you very much!!
Answer
At first glance the reasoning is correct, but it can be challenged: paying a debt is not only where the other person has a right against him, but also where he has an obligation to give from his own money (such as giving charity). After all, the bird-offerings of zavim are also not a debt in the sense that the Temple treasury has a right to receive from him; rather, it is his own obligation toward Heaven to bring the offering. Here too, this is a commandment and not an actual debt.
Again, I thought that this could be discussed in light of the Ran in Kiddushin regarding one who betroths a woman with proceeds of orlah. In the Mishnah there it says that she is betrothed. Now, Rashi’s position in the first chapter of Hullin is that orlah does not transfer its prohibited status to its proceeds except for others, but for the seller it does. The Ran writes that according to Rashi, the reason the Mishnah rules that one who betroths with proceeds of orlah effects betrothal, even though for the man betrothing there is no money here, is because for the woman there is money here. We see that one can betroth a woman with money that does not leave the possession of the man betrothing, so long as the woman’s assets increase, and so long as the man betrothing is the one who causes her assets to increase (similar to the law of a Canaanite slave: “Here is a maneh; become betrothed to so-and-so”). And simply speaking, with sending Purim gifts as well, the law is not that it has to come out of him, but only that it reach his fellow from him (for if a person were to create food by means of the Explicit Divine Name and give it to his fellow, would he not fulfill his obligation?). Therefore it is enough that his fellow’s assets increase, and it is not considered paying off his own debt—which applies only where his own assets are diminished.