Simplicity, Lecture 13
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
🔗 Link to the original lecture
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Table of Contents
- Abstraction and the emergence of money
- Acquisition by barter versus acquisition by money, and the asymmetry
- Monetary equivalent does not turn it back into barter
- Defining money and merchandise in the chapter “HaZahav”
- Maimonides’ approach: a loan versus payment for a purchase
- A loan as a gift, and repaying a debt as a commandment
- A loan is given for expenditure, and betrothal through a loan
- Payment for a purchase: betrothal and acquisition according to Maimonides
- Money as a symbol: an object with no use and conventional value
- Matter and form, Plato, and coinage as “form without matter”
- Acquisition by money as a legal abstraction of ownership
- Coins and produce do not function as barter exchange
- Maimonides in Laws of Sale chapter 6 and the distinction between produce and coinage
- Betrothal: money versus barter, and versions of the Talmudic text
- A utensil worth less than a perutah and the Rashba
- Determining money and merchandise by the purpose of the transaction and practical ramifications
Summary
General Overview
The lecture presents money as a prime example of a process of abstraction, in which value, which is a property of objects, becomes an object in its own right, to the point where money turns into a fiction of mere records. The text argues that acquisition by money is fundamentally different from acquisition by barter and is not symmetrical, even when payment is made with a “monetary equivalent,” and it develops the question of how, in a transaction, one defines what counts as “money” and what counts as “merchandise.” It then presents Maimonides’ approach, which distinguishes between a loan and payment for a purchase, and from that builds a conception of money as an abstract symbol. That conception affects laws such as release of debts in the Sabbatical year, vows, and betrothal, as well as the understanding of disputes in passages such as whether coinage can function as barter and whether produce cannot function as barter.
Abstraction and the emergence of money
Money is defined as an attempt to take the value of things and turn it into an object, so that money is “pure value” and nothing but value. The historical and halakhic process makes it possible to trace the abstraction, all the way to a modern reality in which money is increasingly disappearing as a tangible object and being replaced by records of “what value stands at your disposal.” The text presents the “nuts” story that was sent on WhatsApp about a treasurer as an example of the fictitious nature of money, and argues that money does its job דווקא because of its fictitious nature.
Acquisition by barter versus acquisition by money, and the asymmetry
Acquisition by barter is described as natural, symmetrical trade through exchanging goods, in which the act of drawing possession by one side effects acquisition for both sides. Acquisition by money is described as a different kind of transaction, not symmetrical, and at least according to Jewish law, acquiring the merchandise depends on drawing possession, while merely taking the money does not acquire either the money or the merchandise. The text argues that this creates the need to define in every transaction what is money and what is merchandise, and that this definition itself becomes problematic because “a monetary equivalent is like money.”
Monetary equivalent does not turn it back into barter
The text argues that there is a difference between paying with a monetary equivalent and acquisition by barter, both halakhically and economically. Jewish law preserves the rules of acquisition by money even when payment is made with goods as a monetary equivalent, and therefore if one buys a chair and pays with books as the money, drawing possession of the books acquires neither the books nor the chair, while drawing possession of the chair acquires the chair for the buyer and the books for the seller. The text describes a contemporary situation in which abstraction advances even further into a mere registration of value, but the asymmetry of the transaction remains.
Defining money and merchandise in the chapter “HaZahav”
The text identifies the question of “gold acquires silver; silver acquires gold” as the precise form of the question of who is defined as money and who as merchandise. The Talmud searches for criteria such as “that which is sharper” and “that which is more important,” but these criteria do not hold up, not under the test of Jewish law and not even under the test of reality. The text offers a practical economic explanation for payment through a monetary equivalent: someone who has no money but does have merchandise shortens the process by paying with a monetary equivalent, because the recipient can pass the merchandise on in exchange for what he actually needs.
Maimonides’ approach: a loan versus payment for a purchase
The text presents that according to most medieval authorities (Rishonim), a loan and payment for a purchase are similar in that in both cases the debtor owes a general value not dependent on a particular coin, but Maimonides distinguishes between them. Maimonides holds that in a loan, the debt is just a debt, whereas in payment for a purchase, what is in the buyer’s possession is a kind of deposit: “really, money of mine is sitting with you.” The text cites the Mishnah in tractate Shevi’it, chapter 10, at the beginning of the chapter, that “payment for a purchase is not canceled in the Sabbatical year,” and notes that the Mishnah says, “if he converted it into a loan, then it is canceled.”
A loan as a gift, and repaying a debt as a commandment
According to Maimonides, a loan is described as a kind of gift and act of kindness, and the obligation to return it is defined as a commandment to give a gift back: “repayment of a debt is a commandment.” The text cites the Talmud in Nedarim that one who is forbidden by vow to benefit from his fellow may nevertheless pay off his debt, and explains that the permission comes from the rule of “driving away a lion,” because he is merely preventing a loss and not providing a gain. The explanation formulates it this way: the borrower’s money “was yours and remained yours,” and there was only a commandment upon him to repay, so someone who repaid on his behalf merely exempted him from the commandment and did not give him monetary benefit.
A loan is given for expenditure, and betrothal through a loan
The text presents the usual understanding that “a loan is given for expenditure” means that the lender does not have a particular coin in the borrower’s possession, though he still has a claim to general value. Maimonides is interpreted differently: “he has no money in my possession, no value in my possession, nothing at all in my possession,” but only a commanded obligation to return. From this is built the explanation that “one who betroths through a loan, she is not betrothed because she received nothing,” since betrothal works only when the woman receives something, and not when she is merely released from a future obligation to give back a gift.
Payment for a purchase: betrothal and acquisition according to Maimonides
The text argues that according to Maimonides, in payment for a purchase the buyer has in his possession “my hundred shekels,” and therefore one can acquire with that and one can betroth a woman with that, as the Rashba understands that one can also betroth a woman through payment for a purchase. This distinction is presented as a sharp dispute with the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and as a source of practical ramifications in the Sabbatical year, vows prohibiting benefit, and betrothal. The text refers to a proposal by later authorities (Acharonim) such as Kovetz Shiurim and others, who explain that when money is paid one acquires “the value of the object” and not the object itself, and in payment for a purchase the buyer acquires the object “without the value” until he pays, but the text argues that there is no need for this separation in order to say that in payment for a purchase there is value in the buyer’s possession that belongs to the seller.
Money as a symbol: an object with no use and conventional value
The text sharpens the point that money differs from all other objects in the world, because every object has a use from which its value is derived, whereas with money, “its value is not derived from any use,” and it is “defined by the king.” Money is described as a symbol rather than an object, and therefore transferring bills is just a concrete illustration of an abstract action that can also be done by computer entry. The text cites the Talmud in Bava Metzia regarding coinage: “his mind is on the form, and the form is destined to be nullified,” and emphasizes that the form is the essential thing, not the material.
Matter and form, Plato, and coinage as “form without matter”
The text formulates money in philosophical language as part of the model of “matter and form,” and argues that value is “only the form” of a thing. Money is defined as “form without matter,” in a way analogous to the Platonic conception of ideas, in which an abstract property becomes an entity in its own right. The text compares this to the world of angels as “separate forms” and to kabbalistic language about the world of formation, and formulates coinage as a kind of form that needs to be grasped in a tangible world and therefore gets imprinted on an object.
Acquisition by money as a legal abstraction of ownership
The text argues that barter operates on the level of “body against body,” without the overt presence of the concept of value, whereas money works as a symbolic transfer that imposes a legal status of ownership. Acquisition by money in real estate is presented as an example in which a person becomes an owner without doing anything to the object itself, but rather by force of a legal effect that is registered, something like a land registry entry. The text links the abstraction of money to the abstraction of the concepts of acquisition and ownership, and describes law and economics as an abstract sphere replacing physical closeness to the object.
Coins and produce do not function as barter exchange
The text explains that coinage cannot function as barter because barter is an exchange of one body for another, and coinage “has no body” in its essential sense as a symbol. The text adds that according to one view in the Talmud, produce also cannot function as barter, and explains this by saying that food is something whose use consumes it, so there is no possibility of separating ownership from use, unlike utensils. From this, produce is described as similar to money in that its whole essence is its use, though with produce the value is derived from utility and is not conventional value.
Maimonides in Laws of Sale chapter 6 and the distinction between produce and coinage
Maimonides is quoted: “Produce, although one cannot acquire with it as we explained, may nevertheless be acquired through formal acquisition like other movable property… but coinage, just as one cannot acquire with it, so too it cannot itself be acquired through formal acquisition.” The text offers two ways to understand this: either produce cannot be used to acquire through barter but can itself be acquired through barter, or else it can be acquired through other forms of movable-property acquisition such as acquisition by money, while coinage does not belong to the whole world of barter acquisition at all. The explanation concludes that produce resembles money in being designated for use, but differs from it in that it is not a symbol and its value derives from utility.
Betrothal: money versus barter, and versions of the Talmudic text
The text cites the Talmud in Kiddushin 3a, that acquisition by barter is ineffective for betrothal even though acquisition by money is effective, and presents two versions: Rashi’s version, which ties this to less than a perutah and disgrace, and Tosafot’s version, “a woman is not transferred for less than a perutah.” According to the explanation in the text, less than a perutah is a sign that barter does not work on the level of value but on the level of exchanging tangible items, and betrothal is a symbolic legal act, not the purchase of the woman’s body as merchandise. The text raises a difficulty on Rashi and argues that the straightforward reading is like Tosafot’s version, because barter in its essence belongs to commerce and not to imposing a legal status such as betrothal.
A utensil worth less than a perutah and the Rashba
The text mentions the Rashba in Kiddushin, who raises the possibility of acquisition by money through a utensil worth less than a perutah, and sets this against the claim that when one is dealing with value, there is no significance to less than a perutah, and when one is dealing with the body of the utensil, this is barter and not money. According to the explanation given, there is no room for an inquiry that would allow acquisition by money through a utensil that does not reach the minimum amount of monetary value, because the very shift to a utensil changes the type of acquisition.
Determining money and merchandise by the purpose of the transaction and practical ramifications
The text presents a series of examples in which there is uncertainty about how to define which side is the money and which side is the merchandise, such as the Chazon Ish in Shevi’it regarding payment with Sabbatical-year produce to a barber or bathhouse attendant, the Rashba in Ketubot regarding a condition about food, clothing, and marital relations, and the Chazon Ish in Choshen Mishpat regarding a hired laborer who worked in exchange for a lamb and does not acquire the lamb but may receive different payment. The text proposes a rule: the merchandise is the purpose of the transaction, and the thing given only for its value is the money even if it is an object, and therefore it is not acquired as a specific body and the debt may be repaid with something else. The text concludes in the language of the Talmud in the chapter “HaZahav” that the proper formulation is “obligates” rather than “acquires” in relation to money, because in a monetary transaction the other side does not acquire a specific coin but becomes entitled to the value owed him.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, our general topic is abstraction, and the last few times I dealt with the topic of money. Money is really a very clear example of a process of abstraction that you can actually follow in quite a bit of detail, see it both in the halakhic context and in broader historical-economic contexts, which I know less well, so there I can only make some guesses. And we saw a bit of it, I spoke about the process of how this concept of money came into being, which is really an attempt to take the value of things and turn it into an object. Meaning, if value is something that characterizes things, then money is basically value itself, pure value, an object that is nothing but value. And then I spoke about the relation between acquisition by barter and acquisition by money. I said that acquisition by barter is the natural form of commerce that exists: people simply exchange goods with one another. Acquisition by money is a different kind of acquisition: I receive merchandise and pay for it with money. And in Jewish law too it’s defined as a different kind of acquisition. It applies to different things than barter acquisition and it is carried out differently, and first and foremost it is also not symmetrical.
It isn’t symmetrical because in barter acquisition I exchange goods, and if one party draws possession of the goods then both sides have each acquired what is theirs. But in acquisition by money, according to the dispute between Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish, though at least according to the halakhic ruling this is clear, in order to acquire merchandise you have to draw possession of it. And when I draw possession of the merchandise, the other side, the seller, thereby acquires the money. But if he takes the money, then neither has he acquired the money nor have I acquired the merchandise. So here there is an asymmetry that does not exist in barter acquisition, because now in every transaction you have to define what counts as the money and what counts as the merchandise.
Now that definition itself is problematic, because as the Sages tell us, and really we know this generally, a monetary equivalent is like money. And therefore I can seemingly go back to before the process of abstraction and the creation of money and exchange goods, essentially take merchandise and pay for it not with money but with a monetary equivalent. What is a monetary equivalent? Things that have value. Things that have value are anything. Meaning, I can take merchandise and give other merchandise in exchange for it. So have we gone back to barter acquisition? Seemingly we really have gone back to barter acquisition. We performed some abstraction and in the end got rid of it; it’s like Baron Munchausen’s ladder, right? He ran home, brought a ladder, and that’s how he got out of the pit. Or maybe the other way around: you take a ladder to climb a tree and then throw the ladder away. So no, halakhically that is not the case, and I think factually too it’s not the case, economically it’s not the case. There is a difference between paying with a monetary equivalent for merchandise and making a barter acquisition. Those are two different things.
From the standpoint of Jewish law, all the definitions of acquisition by money remain in place even when the money with which I pay is actually a monetary equivalent, meaning merchandise. The rules are still the rules of acquisition by money. For example, if I buy a chair and pay for it with, I don’t know, books, then if the books are the money in this context, drawing possession of the books does not acquire anything, neither the books nor the chair. Drawing possession of the chair acquires the chair for me and the books for the other side. And so really we don’t—meaning, after we got rid of the abstraction—I’d said that today it’s even easier for us to see this because we’re actually moving to a world where there really won’t be money anymore, there will just be records of how much money you have. In effect there really isn’t—well, there still is, but actual money is disappearing from the world. And basically we really are returning to something that is of course even more abstract: I don’t even have to pay with merchandise that is equivalent to money, I simply record what value stands at your disposal, what value I transferred into your possession.
So even though we have supposedly gotten rid of the abstraction, the asymmetry of the transaction still remains. There is one side that receives money or a monetary equivalent. Overall I’m giving merchandise and receiving merchandise. So now the question begins: in such a transaction, how do you define what is the merchandise and what is the money? In the end I’m giving merchandise and receiving merchandise. What defines one side as merchandise and the other as money? And seemingly this is the discussion in the chapter “HaZahav.” At the beginning of the chapter “HaZahav,” when they discuss “gold acquires silver,” “silver acquires gold,” that is really exactly the question. You are buying gold and paying for it with silver. Now the question is: which of them is the silver metal, which of them is the money, the value, and which of them is the merchandise?
There’s a long discussion by Rabbi—later in Rabbi’s life things changed. The Talmud starts looking for criteria for what exactly defines the side that is merchandise and the side that is money, so they say: what is more marketable, what is more important. “Marketable” meaning readily passed in commerce. “Important,” and all sorts of criteria of that kind. Those criteria don’t stand up, neither under the test of Jewish law nor just under the test of reality.
[Speaker B] But from a factual historical standpoint, once they reached this whole idea of money, why was there a need to go back and exchange merchandise for a monetary equivalent? From the moment you have money, there is no need now.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But who says I have money? Who says I have money? Maybe I have merchandise. Instead of selling it, I’m now taking a shortcut, the reverse of what I did at the beginning. I now have tomatoes and I want chairs. What am I really supposed to do? Go to someone who needs tomatoes and have him give me money, and then take the money and go to someone who needs money and buy a chair from him, a chair store. We’ve gone back to that complication all over again. Why? Let’s just go straight to the chair store and pay him in tomatoes. I don’t have money, I have tomatoes. He doesn’t need tomatoes. If he needed tomatoes I would do barter; that’s not the problem. I don’t want to lose the efficiency that was created when I created money. I only want to gain. Otherwise we really are back in the original situation. So how? I pay with tomatoes as a monetary equivalent, basically. Now he doesn’t need tomatoes, but what difference does that make? He can take the tomatoes and pay with them for something that he does need. And so in effect I shorten the process here, and slowly but surely money starts to disappear, like what’s happening to us today.
In the end it turns out that if money is a fiction, then who needs it? Just write down: such-and-such fictions stand to his credit, to your credit, and that’s all. It’s all fiction. That’s the story about the nuts that I sent you on WhatsApp, about the treasurer and the fictitious nature of money. Even though it does the job—or not even though, but because of its fictitious nature, it does the job.
At the end of the previous lecture I spoke a little about Maimonides’ approach regarding the difference between a loan and payment for a purchase. A debt versus payment for a purchase. Seemingly it’s the same thing. I lent someone money, so he owes me, say, one hundred shekels. I sold him merchandise on credit, so again he owes me one hundred shekels. But in Maimonides’ approach—and that’s how most medieval authorities (Rishonim) understand it, that it really is the same thing—Maimonides’ approach is not like that. Maimonides says that when I lend you money, you owe me; that’s a debt. When I sell to you on credit, then what I have with you is a kind of deposit. Basically there is money of mine sitting with you.
[Speaker D] One—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We saw the implications in the Mishnah in tractate Shevi’it, chapter 10, at the beginning of chapter 10, where payment for a purchase is not canceled in the Sabbatical year. And the medieval authorities (Rishonim) there discuss it, and some say: because it was not given in the form of a loan or for the purpose of a loan. A purchase was not given for the sake of a loan; a purchase is not an act of kindness. I mean a purchase on credit. It’s not an act of kindness, it’s simply efficiency. Instead of collecting a few shekels each time and giving change and all that, forget it—after a week or after a month, come to me, you’ve accumulated enough, pay me for everything all at once. It saves lines in the grocery store and so on. It’s not an act of kindness toward the person receiving the loan because he needs money. That’s not the purpose of the transaction. So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain the Talmud there that way. Since the purpose of the transaction is not the purpose of a loan—or if I translate it, that’s already the reason for the verse—it doesn’t come to benefit or show kindness to someone in need, so what does the release of debts have to do with it? The release of debts comes to care for the needy. Here there are no needy people, and therefore it is not canceled.
[Speaker B] Sometimes the one buying merchandise really is needy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Mishnah itself says: if he converted it into a loan, then yes, it is canceled. Meaning, suppose you owe me one hundred shekels, okay? Now I say to you, look, that’s payment for a purchase. I’m converting it into a loan. Meaning, from now on it becomes a loan. Now you owe me one hundred shekels, okay? Then I have basically lent you. So it turned from payment for a purchase, from my money, into your money. I lent you the money, okay? And of course that’s financial suicide, because the moment I lent you that money, the Sabbatical year cancels it. So suppose I do that. But in any case, that’s what the Talmud says there—the Mishnah, that’s what it says there.
But Maimonides explains it differently, and there is still some uncertainty about exactly what he means. What’s important is what he means: a loan—I spoke about this last time—a loan is really a kind of gift. If I give you one hundred shekels as a loan, in the Torah lending is an act of kindness, the clearest act of kindness. So to give you one hundred shekels is really to give you a gift. Your obligation to return it to me is not an obligation to give me back my money that’s sitting with you—not money of mine that’s sitting with you—but some kind of Torah commandment to give me a gift back, okay? Repayment of a debt is a commandment. Again, I’m speaking here right now according to Maimonides’ approach. This depends on a lot of Talmudic passages and medieval authorities (Rishonim), it’s complicated, but according to Maimonides’ approach apparently that’s how he understood it: that it’s basically just a gift in return.
So therefore I spoke about it, I cited the Talmud in Nedarim. The Talmud says that one who is forbidden by vow to benefit from his fellow may pay off his debt. Meaning, suppose you are forbidden to benefit from me, and you owe money—let’s say Judah owes money to Ezra, okay? Now he is forbidden to benefit from me, and I can go to Ezra and pay him the money on his behalf, so his debt is canceled. He gained money from me, so how can it be that as someone forbidden to benefit from me, he is permitted to benefit from me, to profit from me by something worth money? So the Talmud says that this is called driving away a lion. What does driving away a lion mean? Suppose a lion comes—I think I spoke about this—when a lion comes to devour Judah’s sheep, and I fight the lion and chase it away. I’m allowed to do that even though he is forbidden to benefit from me. Why? Because he didn’t gain anything from me; I merely prevented him from suffering a loss. He had a sheep and he still has a sheep; he didn’t gain anything from me. True, potentially he could have lost it, meaning it could have been devoured, and that is what I prevented, but he didn’t receive from me any added value, any monetary equivalent that he got from me. Therefore that is something I am permitted to do.
The Talmud says that paying off his debt is the same thing as driving away a lion. Same thing. What do you mean driving away a lion? Paying off the debt means literally giving you money. Meaning, there was money with you that belonged to Ezra, and now that money becomes yours. You actually received money. How can you say he didn’t receive money, that only damage was prevented? Driving away a lion is only preventing damage. The point is: no. That money was yours and remained yours, but you had a Torah commandment to repay the debt, meaning to give a gift from your money back to Ezra. I exempted you from the Torah commandment, so I prevented your loss. That money is yours, it was yours and remained yours, only you were facing a loss because of the Torah’s commandment to repay. When I paid off the debt, I exempted you from the Torah commandment. That is driving away a lion.
[Speaker E] So the recipient is only like an object being used? The recipient of the money is just a kind of conduit they’re using?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? The recipient of the money, Ezra? Yes.
[Speaker E] No, here it was someone forbidden to benefit. And with any debt, if it’s only a commandment, then there’s no connection—like, I’m simply obligated to give to him. By the same token I could have been obligated to give to someone else?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because his money is not sitting with me, it’s just a commandment to give to him? Yes, but the commandment is to give to him, not to someone else.
[Speaker E] Not because his money is sitting with me?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, you are giving him your money. “A loan is given for expenditure”—according to most medieval authorities (Rishonim), or according to how it’s usually understood—does not mean this. “A loan is given for expenditure” means, as I said, that there is no specific coin that belongs to the lender. I can use all the coins; it is not a deposit where he deposited his coins with me. Therefore a loan is given for expenditure, but clearly I do have his money, it’s just not specific money. That’s what is called “a loan is given for expenditure.” Maimonides says not so. “A loan is given for expenditure” means he has no money with me, he has no money with me, he has no value with me, he has nothing with me, okay? I am obligated to give him a gift; there is a commandment upon me.
The Talmud actually ties it to that. The Talmud says repayment of a debt is a commandment, and therefore the Talmud says that orphans are not subject to commandments, therefore they do not have to repay their father’s debt. What do you mean? It’s the lender’s money. What does that have to do with commandments?
[Speaker E] Does betrothal work with such a thing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, can you effect betrothal through a loan?
[Speaker E] The Talmud says and so on, betrothal through a loan, yes, because the money isn’t extant?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s exactly it—you are going back to the approach of most medieval authorities (Rishonim) that I mentioned earlier. The common understanding of “a loan is given for expenditure” is said in the case of one who betroths through a loan in the Talmud in Kiddushin 6, right? So when most medieval authorities (Rishonim) learn that passage, they say: this is not a specific item. The woman owes me money, but there isn’t a specific coin here that belongs to me and that I gave her, and betrothal has to be with something specific. According to Maimonides, that’s not it. One who betroths through a loan—she is not betrothed because she received nothing. The money was hers and yours; nothing of mine is with her. She received nothing from me. I merely exempted her from the obligation to give me a gift tomorrow.
[Speaker C] The halakhah—betrothal. She is not betrothed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s clear, that’s explicit in the Talmud. The difficulty is how to interpret it. The way they interpret it is that there is money with the woman that is mine, but not a specific coin or specific document, and therefore you cannot betroth with it because it isn’t a specific thing, what Judah said earlier. But according to Maimonides it turns out no, it’s something essential: the woman has nothing at all of mine. She received nothing—not that she didn’t receive any specific thing, she received nothing. It’s just driving away a lion. I exempted her from future damage. She was supposed to pay and give me a gift back; I exempted her from that, and with that you cannot effect betrothal.
[Speaker B] So what if he doesn’t actually give the gift back in practice? Then he didn’t fulfill a commandment. Can’t that be claimed in court?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can be claimed, and that brings us into the question whether this comes from the fact that we coerce fulfillment of commandments—because commandments too can be enforced—or from the side of the court in monetary matters, where the court seizes property and takes it. It’s very complicated. In the simple conception, a loan belongs to monetary law, Choshen Mishpat; it isn’t just coercion to fulfill commandments. What?
[Speaker E] Then is there an exemption up to one-fifth on that side?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One-fifth? For a positive commandment? Ah, interesting question. I don’t know. Seemingly why not? What’s the difference from orphans paying—commandments don’t apply to them, and therefore they don’t have to repay from their father’s estate?
[Speaker F] Like you would say about be fruitful and multiply, up to one-fifth, no? There are things that are not only up to one-fifth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Of course be fruitful and multiply is up to one-fifth. Why would be fruitful and multiply not be up to one-fifth?
[Speaker F] It’s obvious that be fruitful and multiply requires more than one-fifth from you.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s not true, not true that you are obligated. If it requires more than one-fifth from you, who says you are obligated? I don’t know. But have you seen anywhere a discussion saying that for be fruitful and multiply there is no exemption of one-fifth?
[Speaker F] As I recall, there are certain commandments where it is obvious they are not limited to one-fifth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Aside from charity. No, sorry, with charity it’s the opposite. With charity, even though it’s a prohibition, it is nevertheless limited to one-fifth. A positive commandment is not limited to one-fifth? I don’t remember. I’m not aware of such a discussion.
[Speaker F] So then how do you exempt almost everyone from be fruitful and multiply?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Whoever needs more than one-fifth—it depends how many children. Each child takes more than one-fifth of your property, depending how many children you have, for how many children. And indeed, people do it voluntarily, but perhaps really they are not obligated.
[Speaker C] You’re lost, you need more and more. What? Once you have more than three children, then you’re done, you need more and more. Why? Because now the additional child no longer takes one-fifth. The first child takes half from me; by the second child I’ve already gotten used to it, you know how it is. The first child swallows a two-hundred-shekel coin, the fifth child swallows a one-shekel coin from your pocket.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting argument he’s making. It could be that for that reason you’re not exempt, because if you evaluate each child separately, with the first child it doesn’t cost me one-fifth, so I’m obligated to have him. Okay, he had him and finished. Now I ask: to have another one? This one too won’t cost me one-fifth. After that, I already have the expenses, so that doesn’t help anything. Could be, I don’t know.
[Speaker E] And every stage of your life is one-fifth. What? Every stage of your life is one-fifth.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker E] Meaning there isn’t some point where you spend one-fifth of your assets and pay for the child.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] One-fifth of ongoing income maybe yes for children, not for a single child. Meaning, not for one single child, but for children in general? Could definitely be, why not? One-fifth of ongoing income, not one-fifth of all my assets maybe. It depends on each person according to his assets.
Okay, but I’m saying on the conceptual level I don’t think there is an exemption of one-fifth there, unless, again, according to Yossi’s reasoning maybe. I don’t know. But I don’t think there is a commandment that overrides this. One-fifth is one-fifth. Even, say, circumcision, a commandment that carries karet, things of that kind—I don’t know of commandments where even if it costs one-fifth you are obligated to do it. If anything, that’s where I would expect it first and foremost, in circumcision, say if there are some expenses involved or something like that. I don’t know.
In any case, returning to our topic: according to Maimonides, repayment of a debt is literally a commandment, and therefore when I repay someone else’s debt I am merely driving away a lion, and therefore one who betroths through a loan—she is not betrothed. By contrast, with payment for a purchase, what I sold you on credit, there you have money of mine. Therefore Maimonides’ view, unlike all the medieval authorities (Rishonim)—and everyone is astonished by him and doesn’t understand what’s going on and why and where his source is and so on—Maimonides’ view is that with a loan, with payment for a purchase, one can betroth a woman and one can acquire. One can acquire. The Talmud itself says: what is the law regarding a purchase, like a loan, what is the law regarding a purchase. Maimonides’ view is that with a purchase one can betroth a woman and one can acquire.
The Talmud says that acquiring and betrothing a woman are the same thing. Maimonides doesn’t write about betrothing a woman, I don’t know. But one can acquire. And in the Talmud it’s written that betrothing a woman and acquiring are the same thing, meaning there is no difference. So now decide where you take Maimonides: either he distinguishes between betrothing a woman and acquiring, or between payment for a purchase and a loan. In any case, what’s the idea here? Maimonides says simply: even with payment for a purchase, you are not obligated regarding a specific coin. You owe one hundred shekels, but there is no specific coin. The meaning of “a loan is given for expenditure” in the regular sense of the ordinary medieval authorities (Rishonim) exists in payment for a purchase as well. But Maimonides’ view is that “a loan is given for expenditure” is not that. It’s not that there isn’t some specific thing of mine with you; it’s that there is nothing of mine with you, even something non-specific. In payment for a purchase there is. In payment for a purchase you have one hundred shekels of mine, and therefore I can acquire with that and betroth a woman with that. The Rashba at least thinks that one can also betroth a woman with that; it’s all the same thing. Why? Because the woman receives something from me. According to Maimonides it’s not about whether it’s a specific thing; she receives. Or is it only driving away a lion? With driving away a lion you cannot betroth, you cannot acquire. Here, according to Maimonides, with payment for a purchase it is not driving away a lion; she receives money from me, money that was mine becomes hers, as if there were an envelope on deposit containing one hundred shekels with her and she had to guard it for me. Obviously one could betroth the woman with that.
That is basically the situation here, except that here it is not a specific hundred shekels. But for Maimonides the fact that it is not specific is unimportant. This is not “a loan is given for expenditure,” because after all there is a value of one hundred shekels of mine that is with her. So with that one can acquire, one can betroth a woman, one can do everything. That is also why it is not canceled in the Sabbatical year; one can betroth a woman with it; it is not driving away a lion, yes, all the cases of one forbidden by vow to benefit, all the practical ramifications basically come out of this. And this sharpens for us the point I wanted to show there, namely that this distinction—
[Speaker E] He disagrees twice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With the medieval authorities (Rishonim).
[Speaker E] What? He disagrees twice with the medieval authorities (Rishonim), both about “a loan is given for expenditure,” and also that if it’s a thing like the medieval authorities (Rishonim) say in a loan, then even something that isn’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Specific. In a loan, it’s that repayment of a debt is a commandment. The truth is that the medieval authorities (Rishonim) themselves are uncertain about this. The question is whether they connect it somewhat to whether a lien is of Torah origin or not, because the Talmud itself says that orphans are not obligated to perform commandments. Now in monetary law we also go down to the property of orphans. What’s the difference? It’s my money, I want it; the court should take the money from them and give it to me. So it’s not so simple. There are also sources in the Talmud that you can’t simply brush aside in favor of Maimonides’ conception. So therefore with each of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) you have to check what he does with the Talmud and exactly where he draws the line. But yes, the common understanding of “a loan is given for expenditure” is not like Maimonides; it is like Maimonides’ category of payment for a purchase: there is money of mine with you, just not specific money. Okay.
Good, so there are several later authorities (Acharonim) who actually propose various explanations in Maimonides. I think they miss this point, but they do propose some explanation. They argue that with payment for a purchase, what happens is really—in acquisition by money—suppose you paid me money. If you paid me money in a purchase, why doesn’t the object become acquired by you? Right? Only when you draw possession does the object become yours, and then the money also becomes mine. But if you paid money, then by Torah law maybe yes—this is the dispute between Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish—but according to the halakhic ruling definitely not. Transfer of the money does not acquire the object. But they argue that transfer of the money acquires the value of the object. Transfer of the money acquires the value of the object, meaning—
[Speaker E] You received the money, so the value of the object becomes mine. Not the object itself.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s a kind of fruit of the object, yes? It’s not the object itself but its value. Okay? And in order to acquire the money, they derive all kinds of implications from that, yes, but in order to acquire the object itself you need to do meshikhah, to pull it, because here you’re acquiring the object itself. But they argue that when you transfer the money you did acquire something—you acquired the value of the object. Now they say: what’s the other side of that coin when it comes to purchase money? In purchase money, I took the object and didn’t pay, right? But I didn’t pay—yet the money was acquired if I took the object, right? So it turns out that I have your money with me, right? If you’re the seller, I took the object, I acquired the merchandise, and it was done on credit. Okay. So I took the object, but you didn’t receive the money. What does that mean? It basically means that I didn’t receive the value of the object. The object was acquired by me, but without its value. And then when I transfer the money to you, I’m basically redeeming the value of the object, so the object becomes definitively mine. When I give you the value, it’s like taking the value of the object and returning it to you, because it isn’t mine—I didn’t acquire it. Instead, I take money, because money is pure value, and I transfer that value to you, and that way the object is now fully mine—both the value and the object. And that’s how they explain Maimonides: when you take an object on credit, that basically means that the value was not acquired by you, okay? And therefore they argue that according to Maimonides’ approach, unlike the other medieval authorities (Rishonim), you can acquire with it.
Okay, but I think you don’t need to reach that separation between the object and the value in order to argue what I’m saying. What I’m really saying is that in purchase money, there is value by you that is mine, regardless now—maybe the object I received is mine, both its value and the object itself. But still, the money—where is the consideration? The consideration was apparently already given. Where is it? It’s still by you, but it is already mine, unlike a loan. Okay? That’s enough to say; I don’t think you need this distinction. But for our purposes, what matters are two things. First, this distinction between purchase money and a loan sharpens very much the meaning of money as an abstraction. Because what’s the difference between purchase money and a loan? According to most medieval authorities (Rishonim), there is no difference between purchase money and a loan. In both cases, you have value that belongs to me, but it is not in a specific coin. You don’t owe me that coin; you owe me the value of one hundred shekels in general. So you could say that it’s value attached to the… you basically owe me a coin, just without defining which coin. A kind of process of selection. After you give me the coin, it will become clear retroactively that this was my coin, let’s say for the sake of discussion only, okay? But still, one can say that you owe me something—something unspecified, but something.
According to Maimonides, you can’t say that. Because according to Maimonides, this exists both in purchase money and in a loan, so what then is the difference? Clearly, according to Maimonides, in purchase money that really is the situation. You owe me one hundred shekels, but not specific ones, right? But in a loan, you don’t owe me anything at all. It’s simply a gift. You have a commandment to repay me or to give me a gift back, but there isn’t really something by you that belongs to me. Now, what does it mean that you owe me value? What does it mean that you owe me value? By the way, maybe this could be a possible explanation of the status of a loan according to Maimonides—that you do owe me something, but it’s not a concrete, specific coin; you owe me a coin, a hundred-shekel bill, but not a particular bill, rather some bill or other. Maybe not—you don’t owe me any bill at all. There is one hundred shekels of my value that is by you. Maybe one can make some abstraction out of that, because then it still leaves us with there being some debt in a loan, just a greater abstraction—I don’t know.
In any case, what I want to argue is that money is, after all, an abstraction. And because money is an abstraction, what difference does it make whether you owe me a specific coin? After all, coins are interchangeable. Right? If you gave me these hundred shekels, I can give you a different hundred shekels—it changes nothing, it’s the same thing. If you gave me a specific book, I can’t give you that same book in another copy—that is, the same work but another copy. Why not? Because a book has significance in itself; it has value, but first of all it has use, meaning it’s a concrete object that you own. Money is not an object at all, even concrete money—not when we’re talking about the abstraction of value. Concrete money is not an object at all.
[Speaker E] It has no significance at all. It’s a symbol.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And whichever symbol you use—if you use this symbol or another symbol—practically speaking, what matters is that one hundred shekels of my value is by you. Right? Therefore, this distinction between purchase money and a loan sharpens, I think very nicely, this meaning of the abstraction of money. Basically, money is an object completely different from all other objects in the world. All objects in the world have a use. And as a result of having a use, of course they also have value; a person is willing to pay in order to have the object because he can use it. The assessment of its value derives from what uses can be made of the object. Okay? In contrast, with money, its value is not derived from any use that can be made of it—”to wrap the mouth of his flask with it”—what can you do with this money? Nothing. Its value floats in the air; it is a definition of the king. The king defines that this thing is worth one hundred shekels, so it’s worth one hundred shekels—not because there’s some use that estimates how much it’s worth. Okay?
Now if that really is so… then it’s not really an object at all. An object always has uses, and it has value. Money is not an object. It’s not an object; it’s a symbol. Therefore, as I said, you can go and write in a computer how much value I have by you. What difference does it make whether you place bills there or not? It’s only a question of your capacity for abstraction. If you’re an adult with sufficiently developed abstract thinking, then why transfer cash at all? It’s simply silly; it’s unnecessary. Just write down that there is value of one hundred shekels.
[Speaker E] Like what we do today, transferring from one account to another.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, yes. That’s what we do today. And therefore I say: today we’re simply bringing into actuality what was already inherent in money from the beginning. Namely, that money is not an object at all—it is value. We just make the coin or the banknote the symbol of value, that’s all.
[Speaker D] Now, once upon a time it really was value, the money itself. What? Once, money really did have its own value.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—I’m talking about symbolic money. Not money where the metal is worth the value of the coin.
[Speaker C] If it didn’t have the image of the emperor stamped on it—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “A coin—one’s mind is on its form, and the form is liable to be annulled,” as the Talmud says in Bava Metzia. But the form makes the coin, not—
[Speaker C] the coin itself.
[Speaker E] The object, the object itself has value, so then it ought to count as barter.
[Speaker D] You can do barter with money. That’s not money; that’s the vegetables you took out.
[Speaker E] I gave you tomatoes in exchange for peppers.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] On the level—on the essential level, it’s—
[Speaker E] not money at all.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something that has value on the essential level is not money; it’s merchandise. It doesn’t matter that you put a form on it—it’s merchandise. And the question is whether such a thing can even be defined as money at all. Not a simple question at all.
[Speaker F] And by the way, the dollar began as something pegged to gold, meaning it represented a certain weight of gold.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fort Knox. There were supposed to be gold bars equal in value to the amount of dollars it represented.
[Speaker F] It represented, yes. And then in one second they said, okay, why represent anything? Let’s just cancel that basis entirely, and that’s it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. And that’s the same abstraction. In any case, it’s a symbol, so if it’s a symbol, why do I need the tangible symbol? I can also make an abstract symbol. What difference does it make? Now I want to show a few implications of this point, that money is abstract value. Basically, the claim is—one could formulate it in philosophical language—that every object has essence and form. Yes? Or matter and form. Okay? Or substance and accident, or matter and form. The matter of the thing is the thing itself, and the form is its properties. Value, in essence, is really only the form of the thing. It is not part of the essence of the matter. It derives from the question of what can be done with the thing, and that is the value.
If we formulate it that way, then money is basically form without matter. Right? It’s like what we discussed about the Platonic conception. Plato, after abstracting horseness from the horse, grasps horseness as an object in the world of ideas. It is an idea in the world of ideas. But you begin with the fact that horseness is not an object; horseness is a property of the horse. Only at a certain stage Plato takes the property and turns it into some kind of independently existing entity, and that he calls an idea. What happens with money is quite similar. I abstract the value of the thing. I said there is some scale on which I place all the objects in the world. There is some scale that ranks them—the scale of value. Okay? And now I basically take this abstract concept and turn it itself into a kind of object—money.
Now this also has implications in Jewish law. This conception of money has implications. I’ll maybe bring a few examples. The first example is a Talmudic passage in chapter HaZahav in Bava Metzia 45. “It was stated: Rav and Levi. One said that a coin may effect barter, and one said that a coin may not effect barter. Rav Pappa said: what is the reason of the one who says that a coin may not effect barter? Because one’s mind is on its form, and the form is liable to be annulled.” One’s attention regarding a coin is on the form, and a form is something that can be nullified, so therefore you can’t make barter with it. What’s the meaning of this? What does that mean?
So Rashi says: “Because one’s mind is on its form”—the mind of the one transferring the object and taking the coin in barter relies only on the form in it, for the coin is important only by virtue of the form on it. Tomorrow morning the king takes all these coins out of circulation and introduces another coin. The moment the king decides, this whole thing becomes dust of the earth, because it has nothing objective to it; it’s only a matter of agreement. Therefore, says Rashi, “it is like something not defined and complete, and later they exclude something not defined from the verse about a shoe.” You can’t—”each man drew off his shoe”—from that we derive the mode of acquisition called barter; we saw that regarding Boaz in the book of Ruth. And something not defined cannot effect barter. And money is something incomplete, not defined.
We need to understand exactly what Rashi means here. In our language—at least as I explained Maimonides—it’s much simpler. A coin is form without matter, literally—not just the form the king put on the coin. That’s true, it expresses the point, but expresses what? It expresses the fact that the coin is not an object at all; it is pure form. By the way, angels are separate forms in Kabbalistic thought. Usually angels are seen as separate forms; they have no matter, only form. We are creatures of matter, and we have properties, we have forms, but as for tangible entities—you cannot encounter a form without matter. Form is always attached to some matter.
[Speaker E] The moment you said tangible—yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The objects we know in our world are objects that have form, but the form is always the form of something, the form of matter. You can’t relate to form separately; that’s an abstraction. We do not know forms wandering around. But the conception—yes, the world of angels is in the world of formation. “Formation” comes from the language of form. It is a world of forms, basically the Platonic world of ideas in Kabbalistic language. Okay, so these are separate forms, forms that are not the form of something, but rather the form itself becomes some kind of object of another sort, yes.
So too in the context of the coin: the coin is an angel. The coin is basically an angel. It has no… the matter is there only because with our eyes we cannot see forms, so they place the form on a coin. But what are we really referring to when we talk about a coin? The form on it. Not the coin itself—the form on it. The coin is uninteresting. If I could make forms floating in the air that were not stamped on coins, I would do that; I wouldn’t need the coin for it. It’s only that in our world there are no entities that are separate forms. Form always has to be attached to some object. So because of that, they make coins or make banknotes, and the king puts a form on them. But it’s not for nothing that it’s called form; this is the philosophical concept of form. Meaning: the coin is what signifies form without matter.
And then what? I said that barter in the beginning was really the exchange of one thing for another, before the concept of value existed in the world. That’s an abstraction that came later, right? So things are not given as value; they are given for use. You need a chair in order to sit, he needs tomatoes in order to eat. So you give me a chair, I give you tomatoes. You’ll eat the tomatoes, he’ll sit on the chair. Everything is fine; we are not speaking in the language of value, okay? So the tomatoes and the chair pass body against body. Meaning, you give me the body of the thing, and in return I give you the body of another thing. Okay?
When they invented money, coins—which, as I said, are the concretization of the abstract concept of value—the transaction becomes a different kind of transaction. I’m not exchanging thing for thing; I’m exchanging value for value, as I quoted a bit earlier from later authorities (Acharonim) who speak about this. I’m exchanging value for value. And then what happens is that sale becomes symbolic sale. Exchange is a primitive acquisition. You take the tomato and it becomes yours. What does “yours” mean? Not yours—physically it’s by you. The very concept of “yours” is itself an abstraction. What does “yours” mean? There are things that are by me and I use them, and things that are by you and you use them. Now when you begin to define the concept of ownership, the concept of acquisition, that is a legal concept. It is not a concept that has a reality in our world; it is an abstraction. Okay?
Now in the world of barter this obviously existed; value also existed there, we talked about that, but it existed in the subtext—it wasn’t really present. When you talk about money, money comes together with the concept of ownership. Not for nothing; money is the same abstraction. When you become owner of something, you acquire the ownership by paying money. Because basically creating ownership over a thing is a kind of abstraction: I am now the owner of the thing. It’s not only that physically I can use it, it’s in my house, or things like that; rather, I am the owner—it has legal status. This thing is abstract. And this is applied, yes, through the transfer of money. That’s what money does. Basically, I give you the money, and that applies—again, rabbinically one also needs meshikhah. But in principle, the transfer of money is a symbolic act. Let’s say, in land you don’t need meshikhah; with land there is acquisition by money, and the money acquires the field. So I transfer you the money, and that is a symbolic act that turns me into the owner of the thing.
Another mode of acquisition for land, for example, is locking and fencing—meaning using the property itself. That too is a way of acquiring, but it’s the primitive way of acquiring. It’s like barter: just start using it, and that means you own it. You begin using the field, so you own it. The concept of money is a very abstract concept; it requires a kind of legal abstraction, because I become the owner without doing any act in the field. I do nothing to the field, and the field also didn’t move from place to place—it remains where it was. So in what sense am I the owner? Only in the sense that in the land registry it is written that I became the owner of the field. That is a very abstract thing. And therefore it parallels the abstraction of money. The abstraction of money brought with it a legal abstraction. The legal act became an independent sphere. It’s no longer that you take something and I take something else, as children do, trading. Children don’t talk in the language of who owns what; rather, give me this marble and I’ll give you this toy—meaning, they speak in the language of swapping. Okay?
When you move into the economic and legal world—and they go together, the law regulates the economy, and the economy is a means through which law can be managed; today there is law and economics, yes, very popular in the legal world today—these two abstractions transfer all the negotiation between people into an abstract sphere that we call the legal sphere. And in the legal sphere, it is no longer determined by the question of where it is physically located and who uses it, but by who is defined as the owner. And of course now you have to regulate how that is done, how it happens. So you register in the land registry; you have to do something to ensure it. But again, these are just limitations. If we could do it without registration, and everyone simply knew, then everyone would know. Registration in the land registry is like minting coins—it is taking something abstract and trying to make it tangible, so that it will be clear to everyone that it happened. Okay? But that’s just a need because we live in a tangible world. We don’t know how to handle abstract things. That’s all. In principle, it isn’t needed.
And then what happens here? Now it’s clear why a coin cannot effect barter. A coin cannot effect barter because barter is exchanging the body of one thing for the body of another thing—that is the primitive acquisition. A coin has no body. It has neither body nor bodily form. I said that that’s why people worship money as an idol, because it has neither body nor bodily form. I mean that seriously, by the way—I’m not joking, I think it’s true. People have some special relationship to something that expresses an abstract thing. An idol too, I think, fundamentally has its power because it expresses an abstract thing. It’s a concrete expression—wood and stone—but I think a normal person doesn’t think that this piece of wood and stone does anything. Rather, this wood and stone is a tangible expression of some abstract force. And these things apparently touch us at a very deep psychological point, they bring us into a kind of ecstasy of idol worship. The sin of the calf is some expression of this. “Make us a god who shall go before us”—they wanted a concretization of the Holy One, something terribly abstract, and then suddenly there was excitement in the worship of God. Until then, where was all the great excitement? When there is something tangible that concretizes something abstract, somehow it stirs us up, apparently activates very powerful emotional mechanisms in us.
[Speaker B] But even without money, there still is significance to when the money passes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean?
[Speaker B] First of all, say for example the dollar rate suddenly drops—if I haven’t physically received the money into my hand, then I’ll already get less money.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, obviously—but these are all technical problems. Because in principle, I don’t need to transfer the money to you in order for the money to pass. You gave me the merchandise? I owe you one hundred shekels. What difference does it make whether I gave you a coin of one hundred shekels or I owe you one hundred shekels? We put it into a coin so the matter becomes tangible. But in principle it makes no difference at all. Now after we’ve made it tangible, these annoying questions begin. Okay, from when did it pass? And what if the value changed? If I now have to give you one hundred ten shekels instead of one hundred, and we agreed on a certain value. But in principle it shouldn’t have been this way, because the moment I took the object, your one hundred shekels are by me. Meaning, there are one hundred shekels of yours by me. That’s it—it happened immediately. There is no need to define legally the moment when it happens, because the whole need for legal definitions is only because of the concretization we make of abstract things.
So now I ask: why can’t a coin effect barter? Very simply, because barter is an exchange of body for body. A coin has no body. Why in the world should it effect barter? It can’t effect barter. A coin can effect an acquisition that we call acquisition by money, not barter acquisition, because acquisition by money is essentially different from barter acquisition. It’s not just that there is acquisition by lifting, by pulling, by barter, by money—we’re used to there being many modes of acquisition. No, no, these are totally different worlds. Acquisition by money is, in a sense, different even from all the other modes of acquisition. Meshikhah is the closest thing to barter, because meshikhah is basically taking the thing to me, like children say: now it’s by me, it’s mine. Lifting it already symbolizes a bit that it’s mine; I still haven’t taken it into my possession, so it’s already somewhat… Money is the most symbolic of all. In the end, basically I did nothing at all; we only performed a legal act, transferred an abstraction from one to another, and that’s it. And the thing is acquired. That answer applies at least for land, where money acquires; and with movables, it acquires only by Torah law, while rabbinically you need meshikhah.
[Speaker D] But again, a coin not for acquisition—the coin is money, value; I mean, the coin still is worth something.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s worth nothing.
[Speaker D] The coin itself is money, and what—isn’t it worth something?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—I’m talking about a symbolic coin, not a coin… why?
[Speaker D] But even a symbolic coin still had value.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think so. Not all coins, no—not all coins were like that.
[Speaker C] I don’t think the coinage of the people of Israel was lead with plating, because there was—there was the face of the emperor stamped on it, and if you forged the coin it was punishable by death.
[Speaker D] Why would you need to make it out of gold? That’s expensive. If it’s forged stamped money—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Doesn’t matter. But that wasn’t the value of the coin. The value of the coin was not the value of its gold. Even if it was made of anything—the simplest metal is worth something—but that is not the value of the coin. Like banknotes today: a hundred-shekel note, the paper is not worth one hundred shekels.
[Speaker D] You can’t compare today’s banknotes to old coins in terms of the material—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] meaning that even so, it’s not abstraction in any way like today. What about the old coins? I’m saying: there were periods—we talked about this last time—when the coin did equal its value. But there were periods when—I don’t know, again, when the transition happened and how—but there were periods when the coin did not equal its value; it was a symbolic coin. It had value because the king stamped a form on it.
[Speaker C] But then it’s not a coin, when it was worth its own material.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s why I say: essentially it is not a coin, it’s just a kind of merchandise. One has to understand very well in what sense money that is worth itself—money whose value is essential—why—
[Speaker D] should they use only the coin as coin and not as merchandise? What do you mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But merchandise—the king can’t determine that I may not trade merchandise. I can transfer merchandise to whomever I want. What, it’s forbidden for me to transfer gold to you? What’s the problem? So what if I transfer you gold in a round shape? Not because of that. Not because of that. Money is not—again, money essentially is not worth its own value. There were periods when it was and periods when it wasn’t, and I’m not expert in the history of exactly how that happened. But money that is worth its own value is not really money. It’s just—it’s not really money, it’s a strange creature. Real money is something symbolic. That is money. Otherwise it’s merchandise.
Now, therefore, a coin cannot effect barter. And now there’s an interesting remark: there is something else that also does not effect barter—produce too does not effect barter. There’s a dispute in the Talmud, but according to one opinion, produce does not effect barter. Why not? Because it’s the same reason, in reverse. What happens with produce? Look, produce—when we speak in halakhic language, the fruit of something means the use of the thing. The fruit of a hammer is the possibility of using the hammer. The fruit of a house is the possibility of living in it or making use of it, okay? The fruit of a palm tree, for example, is the fruit the palm yields. But the fruit itself—if you take the fruit itself, now I’m selling the fruit, not the palm for its fruit, but I already plucked the fruit. Now I’m selling the fruit. This fruit is a very strange creature, because unlike a hammer—actually all food, not just fruit—because unlike a hammer, a hammer has value, you use it and return it to me and everything is fine. The value doesn’t get used up, right? The ability to use the hammer is its value. I lend you the hammer, you return it to me, everything is fine, nothing happened. I sold you a hammer—no problem, you now have the value of the hammer.
I sold you… you can’t lend fruit, right? You can’t lend fruit. Why not? Why? Because fruit, you eat. The moment you eat it, it is consumed. Its use is its destruction. Exactly. The use of fruit destroys it. Right. So you can’t lend fruit. What does that mean? It means that fruit too is basically something all of which is only use. Right? Unlike a hammer. Unlike utensils. You know that the things that contract impurity are either utensils or food. There is an essential difference between utensils and food. Utensils and food, by the way, are the general classification for anything that is not natural. Anything that is not natural is either a utensil or food. That is the halakhic division. Okay? And natural things do not contract impurity. Mountains and hills, things attached to the ground, sand—they do not contract impurity. What contracts impurity is only what belongs to the human world. Okay?
But there is a difference between food and utensils. With utensils, the use is not a use that consumes them. There are utensils that wear out and so on, but in principle the value remains. It is not a consuming use. In food, the use consumes it. Therefore you can lend utensils; you cannot lend food. But for our purposes, what this means is that food is something that in essence resembles a coin. It resembles a coin because in food too there is no significance to the thing beyond its uses. In a hammer there is significance to owning the hammer even when you make use of it. I own the hammer and you use it. Therefore you can lend a hammer. Why can you lend a hammer? Because one can distinguish between ownership and use. Right? I’ll give you the hammer for use, but to whom does the hammer belong? To me. But with fruit, you can’t make that distinction. If you make use of the fruit, then you are owner of the hammer—sorry, in what sense am I owner of the fruit if you use it? The use consumes it, right? You can’t make that distinction. Therefore fruit, in a certain sense, is the complete opposite of a coin. It’s only body, as it were—but not really. Very often opposites meet on the other side of the arc. The fruit is actually very similar to a coin in this sense. Because in practice fruit is intended solely for its use. The object itself has no significance beyond the uses you can make of it. In that sense it is very similar to a coin. Therefore, according to one opinion in the Talmud at least, produce does not effect barter. Because barter is merchandise against merchandise. Merchandise against merchandise means something that remains valuable even after I transferred it to you, and you can separate the value of the thing, or its use, from ownership of the thing itself. Body and it has form—what I said earlier, matter and form. Okay? Fruit has only matter, no form—or call it pure form. Those are two ways of formulating it. Okay? And in that sense it is exactly like a coin.
[Speaker D] So if we’re talking about a coin as a utensil, then a coin or a utensil can be considered a utensil if it serves some use.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, so again—you’re going back to something that I’m not calling a coin. For me, a coin is something transparent, where all there is to it is the form. Obviously, as an object, as an entity, you can make some use of a coin, but that use is not use as a coin.
[Speaker D] To make pizza with that little disk. That’s not this coin, because this coin is symbolic. I got it. And that means it’s considered a utensil because it is fit for use.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it may be considered a utensil in some other sense, for other needs. In the commercial sense, when you pass it as a coin, I don’t relate to it as a utensil. I relate to it as a coin. I don’t care that you can make use of the circle. That’s not the point; that’s not the function it is serving here.
[Speaker D] Acquisition by money, which we learn from Abraham and Ephron—four hundred shekels of silver. I don’t know.
[Speaker C] There weren’t coins there at all. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s talking about a weight of silver.
[Speaker D] There I think it really was—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the material aspect of the money, not its formal one.
[Speaker D] And then what does that mean? Does it mean that acquisition by money is yes, or that it is value-equivalent? Even with value-equivalent you can make acquisition by money. What? Gold can serve as value-equivalent, or silver by weight can serve as value-equivalent, not necessarily as money. But is acquisition by money done by means of value-equivalent?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, obviously. When you exchange value-equivalent for merchandise, although it’s like—
[Speaker D] barter. I—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] give you merchandise and receive merchandise. It isn’t done that way.
[Speaker D] If you do meshikhah on the merchandise that I give you as value-equivalent, then I haven’t acquired my merchandise—not like in barter. The value-equivalent functions as money even though we’re dealing with an object that has uses. That’s exactly the example of a coin that has uses—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] but it functions as money, as monetary coin, not as an object.
[Speaker D] even though in the past money really did equal its own value simply as metal. Like gold.
[Speaker C] The silver and gold of the ancient world. Today silver and gold are used in all kinds of manufacturing processes. In the ancient world silver and gold served only as coins. Value—what do you mean that gold had value because they used it? There were other uses in the world for gold, in making shields and so on. No, but you can use it as jewelry. You can use it as jewelry. That’s another use. Yes, as jewelry. Exactly. But what is jewelry? Again, it’s a kind of—it was no less valuable. Jewelry.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. That was the use it had.
[Speaker C] And to a certain extent that’s called a use.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why not? It’s a use—what, adorning oneself is a use, why not?
[Speaker F] Wait, but also when they say, “the one for whom your wheat was destroyed by fire in the upper chamber”—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There, that’s acquisition by money. “Your wheat was destroyed by fire in the upper room”—that’s acquisition by money. You buy the wheat with money.
[Speaker F] Right, so wheat is not the money, as it were. It’s the merchandise. It’s the merchandise.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Produce can certainly be merchandise in acquisition by money. No one ever disputed that. That you can acquire produce and the produce will serve as the merchandise in acquisition by money—that’s obvious. But according to that opinion, you can’t use produce for barter. And with money they will serve as merchandise.
[Speaker F] Does produce include grain too?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Same thing. In my opinion, by the way, all food is like this. I don’t think it matters specifically whether these fruits grew on a tree. Did he say meat?
[Speaker E] If I remember right, he said meat.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Although with meat, that’s growths of the ground. Meaning, animals are considered growths of the ground in the Talmud. Animals, because they eat from the ground, are nourished from the ground. In many places we see that animals are considered growths of the ground, even in the laws of the Sabbath. If you detach from an animal, that counts as reaping, because an animal is considered growth of the ground. And then with an animal, say, you could still say that it’s basically considered a kind of fruit because it grows from the ground or something like that. Fine, I don’t know. But even if you make some artificial food, whatever, with no connection to the ground at all, it would have the same law. It wouldn’t effect barter, and it would have all the laws of produce, I think.
So the point I want to make here is that in this sense produce is like money without needing abstraction. In produce, that’s just naturally how it is. That’s the outcome of what it is. No abstraction is needed for that. But it functions in the same way. Produce functions naturally the way money functions after its abstraction. Okay. There is a Maimonides.
[Speaker F] According to that, oil too would have the same status.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because that too is a consuming use. Possibly. Seemingly yes.
[Speaker B] That’s why when you sell an animal—what?—when you sell an animal, basically you need to define in advance whether you are buying it in order to eat it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll get to that in a moment.
[Speaker B] We’ll get to that in a moment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not because of eating or not eating. We’ll see in a second. Maimonides writes in the Laws of Sale, chapter 6: “Produce, even though one does not acquire with it as we have explained”—the Jewish law rules like that opinion that with produce there is no barter acquisition—”nevertheless, it may itself be acquired by acquisition like other movables.” Fine. “It may be acquired by acquisition”—on the one hand it is like money, and therefore it does not effect barter, but it can be acquired. Not acquired by means of it, but acquired itself—yes. “But coin, just as one does not acquire with it, so too it is not acquired by barter acquisition. It turns out that coin is not acquired by barter acquisition and does not itself become a means of acquisition to acquire other things.”
Now it’s not entirely clear to me what Maimonides means. It can be understood in two ways. One can understand it this way—the plain sense of his language, I think, is that produce can indeed play—meaning, one does not acquire with it in barter, but one acquires it by barter. That is one possibility for understanding Maimonides. Another possibility is that he means acquisition by money. “May be acquired by acquisition like other movables” means that one can acquire produce with money. What you asked earlier—if produce has no form, then how can it function as money, but how can it function as merchandise in acquisition by money? So he says: no, no. In acquisition by money it can function as merchandise. In barter acquisition, produce cannot function as merchandise. That is not an exchange of body for body.
[Speaker D] What does “not acquire” mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meshikhah. Right. By Torah law it’s meshikhah. Rabbinically no. By Torah law? Yes—maybe, I don’t know.
[Speaker D] Either way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two ways to understand Maimonides.
[Speaker D] In barter. When not. The first explanation is within barter. The second explanation is acquisition by money.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. So I’m saying: if it’s within barter, then that’s interesting too. Because then it comes out that produce does resemble money—this is the plain sense of Maimonides here. So if it really resembles money, then why this asymmetry? Why is it that with produce one does not acquire by means of it, but one does acquire it in barter, whereas with money one neither acquires it nor acquires by means of it in barter acquisition, let’s say for now? What’s the difference? What I said earlier: produce is still merchandise. It’s just the reverse, in a certain sense—it’s only body. It has no fruit at all, because whoever owns the fruit owns everything; you cannot detach ownership of the fruit from ownership of the fruit of the orange. The orange itself is fruit. So to own it is also to own its fruit. Then you can say that it is pure matter, not pure form. Money is pure form. But in practice it behaves very similarly to money, because in the end it is intended for its uses. So as regards the question whether one acquires by means of it—you can’t acquire by means of it. But as for whether one acquires it—just as in acquisition by money produce certainly is acquired by money, meaning one can buy produce by paying money and acquire it by acquisition by money, right? That’s certain. Okay. So also in barter acquisition—you don’t acquire by means of it, but you can acquire it by barter. Because produce is nevertheless not really money. It does have a body. Produce is not a symbol. It’s true that it functions like money, but it is not a symbol. Money is entirely a symbol. So it is neither acquired nor does it acquire—it does not belong at all to this world of barter acquisition. Okay? And that distinction illustrates exactly the fact that produce may behave like money, but it is not really money. The value of produce is derived from what can be done with it. It is not a conventional value. If the fruit is tasty, filling, whatever, then it will be worth more. Right? So the value is a result of the use. In that sense produce is like utensils. Okay? Only there the use is consuming. In that sense it is like money. So it resembles money on one side but not on the other. So just as you can acquire it in acquisition by money, so too in barter you can acquire it, but you cannot acquire by means of it in barter. You can acquire with it in acquisition by money as value-equivalent, but you cannot acquire with it in barter acquisition.
[Speaker F] Is that impossible by Torah law?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think so.
[Speaker F] But the whole barter acquisition began with somebody giving an orange for an apple. I mean, what do you mean—before the giving of the Torah, didn’t people do barter in produce?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, again—that whole… the question is before the giving of the Torah or before the invention of money, the institutionalization of money, which does not overlap with the giving of the Torah. In principle, once a legal system exists, it regulates the primitive acquisitions as well. Now you have to define what is acquired by primitive acquisition and what is acquired by legal acquisition, and then it may no longer be like it was before the giving of the Torah. Even if before the giving of the Torah they acquired something by barter, after the giving of the Torah it may already no longer be acquired that way. Because once we have defined money, we have to explain everything. We need to understand and define every thing. And now it is no longer just left to accepted practice, and that’s it. So the definitions can change from what they were before the giving of the Torah.
[Speaker D] But the whole barter acquisition is from the book of Ruth, isn’t it? And money too is in the Torah. Yes. Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m saying you talked about this last time; it’s also not really from the Book of Ruth. The Book of Ruth reflects what people did; it’s not a source. There are those who want to say that because it comes from the Book of Ruth, symbolic exchange acquisition is rabbinic. That makes no sense. Symbolic exchange acquisition is the father of Torah-level acquisitions, the most Torah-level there is. It’s just that in the Book of Ruth there’s an indication of the matter; you see that they did it. Meaning, it simply reveals to me that this is what they did. That’s all. It’s not a source. In general, most acquisitions by pulling, lifting, and all those things, it comes out—they don’t come from any source. There’s no source for them in the Torah, and they’re still Torah-level; nobody disputes that they’re Torah-level. Because obviously, there are things people do and they’re Torah-level. It’s not— even if you find a source, also the “four hundred shekels of silver” of Ephron, the source for acquisition by money, I’m not sure that’s a source either; maybe that too is just an indication. You simply see that that’s what they did. There is a Ritva
[Speaker G] who says it’s a verbal analogy?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Ritva, yes—no, he says it’s a verbal analogy regarding a woman: “taking” “taking,” from the field of Ephron. That’s the Ritva and Tosafot there. So since you mentioned it, one more interesting point. The Talmud on page 3 in tractate Kiddushin says there’s a difference between acquisition by money and symbolic exchange acquisition. Symbolic exchange doesn’t work for betrothal. You can betroth a woman with money, but not through symbolic exchange. There are two versions there in the Talmud. One version is Rashi’s version, which says: why does the Talmud explain that with symbolic exchange a woman is not betrothed? Because symbolic exchange is done with less than the value of a perutah, and with less than a perutah a woman does not transfer herself. She isn’t willing to transfer herself for less than a perutah; it is degrading for her to transfer herself for less than a perutah. And then you really understand that this is basically some kind of technical matter—the woman isn’t willing. Something is lacking. There is no full intent.
But there is another version that appears in Tosafot, and in the Ritva too, I think, that says: with less than the value of a perutah, a woman is not acquired—not “she does not transfer herself,” but “is not acquired.” And then that means that basically there are those who say perhaps it’s even rabbinic that you can’t do betrothal that way, but I’m not sure that’s what Rashi says. But in Tosafot, a woman is not acquired with less than the value of a perutah. What does that mean? It means that symbolic exchange acquisition is done with less than the value of a perutah. What does that mean? It means that in symbolic exchange acquisition, an object is exchanged for an object, and therefore value is not needed. Why does symbolic exchange acquisition not require a perutah’s worth, while acquisition by money does require a perutah’s worth? Because in symbolic exchange it doesn’t operate on value; it’s an exchange of object for object. So you can exchange even something worth less than a perutah. Right? But in acquisition by money you’re working on value, so less than a perutah doesn’t work; there’s no such thing—it’s not money if it’s less than a perutah.
Now with betrothal you can’t do betrothal by symbolic exchange. Why? Because you are not buying the woman. You are not buying her body. The acquisition of betrothal is a symbolic acquisition. You give her money in order to effect the legal status of betrothal. You are not buying her as merchandise. So obviously what works here is the symbolic acquisition, not the primitive acquisition. Acquisition by money does not impose ownership over the woman; rather, just as it serves as a symbol for imposing ownership, it serves as a symbol for imposing the legal status of betrothal. Okay? But in symbolic exchange this is not a legal act. Symbolic exchange is a commercial act. You give an object and receive an object, and with a woman you are not buying her body, so what relevance does symbolic exchange even have? What the Talmud says—that symbolic exchange is less than a perutah and a woman with less than a perutah is not acquired—according to this definition, you have to say that the problem is not that it’s less than a perutah. Less than a perutah is a sign. It’s not the reason. It’s a sign that this doesn’t operate on value, so it is a primitive acquisition, not a legal acquisition. And a woman is not acquired through a primitive acquisition, because you’re not buying her; she’s not merchandise. Betrothal is a purely legal act. Betrothal is not a commercial act. What relevance is there to doing symbolic exchange for a legal act? It doesn’t belong at all. Symbolic exchange is exchange; it’s a commercial act. That’s the meaning according to Tosafot.
Therefore I think that what is written there—were it not for Rashi’s version—what is written there really is the plain meaning, whether Torah-level or rabbinic, it doesn’t depend on that. And if a woman does want to be betrothed for less than a perutah, then what? Why not? That’s how Tosafot asks it against Rashi. Right? What happens if a woman wants to be betrothed for less than a perutah? And besides, what difference does less than a perutah make? It’s nonsense, because it’s not the compensation she’s receiving—the betrothal. She wants to be betrothed because she wants this husband. So what do you care whether she does it with half a perutah or a full perutah? This whole Rashi is difficult—that with less than a perutah she does not transfer herself. So the simple plain meaning is what Tosafot says: that by symbolic exchange, in essence, you can’t betroth a woman, because you are not buying her as merchandise. Therefore it has no relevance to betroth a woman with such a thing. Exactly like we saw earlier that money is not used for symbolic exchange, or produce is not used for symbolic exchange.
I just maybe want to finish this so we don’t drag it into next time—two comments. One comment: there is a Rashba in Kiddushin who talks about a vessel worth less than a perutah. He wants to claim—or at least he hesitates; in one place he hesitates, elsewhere I think he writes something more definite—that perhaps one can acquire through acquisition by money using a vessel if the vessel is worth less than a perutah. Because in symbolic exchange, after all, you can also do it with a vessel worth less than a perutah, so he argued that also in acquisition by money, if it is done with vessels rather than with money, then even with less than a perutah you can use it. According to what I’m saying now, that is not correct. Because a vessel worth less than a perutah is effective not because a vessel is different from money, not because a vessel is something significant, something valuable, and therefore even if it is half a perutah you can view it as something important, but because with a vessel you are not operating on value—you are operating on use, on the object itself. So then, in acquisition by money, what would it mean to do acquisition by money with a hammer worth half a perutah? If you are talking about the value of the hammer, then you can’t perform acquisition by money with it. If you are talking about the hammer itself, that is symbolic exchange, not acquisition by money. So according to what I’m saying now, there is no room for this inquiry of the Rashba. Meaning, you cannot acquire with a vessel worth less than a perutah.
Now there is a whole series of examples in which the later authorities (Acharonim) wonder how you determine what is defined as money and what is defined as merchandise. One example: there is the Chazon Ish on the Sabbatical year. The Chazon Ish—there is a Mishnah in tractate Shevi’it that says one does not pay with Sabbatical-year produce for work done by a barber, a bath attendant, or various things of that kind. One does not hand over Sabbatical-year money to an ignoramus. The question is whether what is meant there is the produce or the money; it’s not entirely clear there in the Mishnah whether it means the produce or the money, but it doesn’t matter. The Chazon Ish asks there: why not look at it the other way around? The barber is paying me for the Sabbatical-year produce. He takes from me the Sabbatical-year produce, or the Sabbatical-year money, depending on what is being discussed there, and he pays me by cutting my hair. And that is permitted; I did not hand over Sabbatical-year money to an ignoramus—that is permitted. Why do we view it as though I am paying with the Sabbatical-year money and the merchandise is the haircut? View the Sabbatical-year money or the Sabbatical-year produce as the merchandise, and the haircut as the money, as the payment. After all, we know that you can betroth a woman with “dance before me,” by means of doing something that has monetary value; you can betroth by means of that as well, so that is something of monetary value. So what is the problem? Why can’t we see this thing as the money? So he wonders there, dealing with a whole series of questions like these; I collected a few such examples here.
There is a Rashba in Ketubot who says: if someone stipulated regarding food, clothing, and conjugal rights—he betroths a woman on condition that she has no claim to food, clothing, and conjugal rights—the Rashba says that applies only to food and clothing, not to conjugal rights. Regarding conjugal rights you cannot stipulate, even according to one who says that in monetary matters you can stipulate otherwise. With conjugal rights you cannot. So they ask there: what do you mean? Conjugal rights also have monetary value; the woman values it at such-and-such an amount, appraise it, she can waive that thing. Or there is the question: why is a borrower, and not a paid guardian, liable for unavoidable accidents? A borrower is liable for unavoidable accidents, so that liability for accidents is the payment he gives for the merchandise he received. Like, for example, one who returns a lost object—because he is exempt from the perutah of Rav Yosef, he becomes a paid guardian. Or, I don’t know, there is in the Shulchan Arukh: one who arranges with a laborer that he will work for him and he will give him a lamb in return. Okay? If the laborer worked, he did not acquire the lamb; that is what is written there. And not only that—he is not even obligated to give him the lamb at all; he can pay him with anything else. Again, the assumption of course is that the lamb is the money. Right? Because if the lamb were the merchandise, then I acquired the lamb, and you have to give me the lamb, right? So now again the question arises: who says the lamb is the money? And this too is in the Chazon Ish, in Likutei Choshen Mishpat. There too he asks this question. Why define the lamb as the merchandise and not as the money? How do you determine what is merchandise and what is money?
The answer to all these things is simple, and it is connected to the abstractions I talked about earlier. We talked about how after we abstracted the concept of value and embodied it in a coin, we then went back again and canceled the coin. Right? There is also monetary value—take the merchandise and use it as monetary value. How do I know when the transaction is a transaction of acquisition by money and not symbolic exchange? First: how do I know that this is a transaction of acquisition by money and not symbolic exchange? After all, you can also do acquisition by money with merchandise. So how do you know it is acquisition by money and not symbolic exchange? Or symbolic exchange and not acquisition by money? Second: how do you determine what is the merchandise and what is the money? These are two pieces of merchandise.
The answer is: the merchandise is the purpose of the transaction. Suppose you want a chair, so you want a chair. The fact that you pay him in tomatoes is because you don’t have money, so you pay him in tomatoes; you use the tomatoes as monetary value. If we defined this as symbolic exchange, symbolic exchange means you receive certain tomatoes and I receive a certain chair. Then it’s exactly these tomatoes against this chair. Then indeed it is symmetrical, and pulling either one of them acquires both, on both sides. But if it is defined as acquisition by money, even though there too it is tomatoes for a chair—so how do we know, first of all, that this is acquisition by money and not symbolic exchange? Second, how do we know which is the merchandise and which is the money? The answer is very simple: what is the purpose of the transaction? If the transaction is a work transaction, I basically want you to cut my hair; that’s why I came to you. Now I don’t have money at the moment, so I pay you in tomatoes or with a lamb. So the merchandise is the haircut, and the tomatoes or the lamb are the money. And therefore I can pay you not with a lamb as well—I promised you a lamb, afterward I gave you a chair—I don’t owe you the lamb, because you did not acquire the money.
[Speaker D] Let’s say with the barber the transaction is not—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then he would have to define it as symbolic exchange. Meaning, if the barber wants specifically the lamb, then let him define it as symbolic exchange. It won’t be symbolic exchange because it’s work. Never mind. He would need to define that he wants specifically this lamb, and then it would be like symbolic exchange. Okay? But if not, if he defines it as compensation, say—
[Speaker E] that I go to someone who has a lamb and say to him—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, give me this lamb in return for my paying you with a haircut—then the haircut really is the money. Then the haircut is the money. The question is: what is the purpose of the transaction? That’s exactly the point. And in all these examples, the question what the purpose of the transaction is—that is what determines what the merchandise is. And something of monetary value is defined as that object which you give only for its value. You’re not giving it as a tomato; you’re giving it as an equivalent value of one hundred shekels. And here we have returned once again to that same abstraction. Meaning, I can use a tomato for its value, and then in truth the tomato is money; it is not a tomato. And it really will be the money and not the merchandise, with all the implications: if you pull it, you acquire nothing. If you pull the other thing, you do not acquire the tomato but rather acquire the value of a tomato. You can then give him money, or a tomato, or a lamb, or whatever it may be, because the tomato here is money, not a tomato. You did not acquire the tomato even when he pulled the merchandise, despite the fact that the Talmud says that when you pull the merchandise, the money is acquired. But “the money is acquired” means there is a value of mine that I owe you; something was not acquired for you. So even if we set that I will pay this value—I give you money—because all you gained was only the value that I have to pay you.
Actually, in the language of the Talmud, by the way, in the Talmud in the chapter HaZahav that I read earlier, the Talmud talks about this and says: if so, “gold acquires the silver”—it should have said “obligates,” not “acquires.” It should say that the gold obligates the silver, not acquires the silver. Why? Because in truth you did not acquire the money. The money is the coin. I owe you a value of one hundred shekels. Afterward I can give you not money at all, not the metal silver. I can give you a chair. Exactly what is ruled in the Shulchan Arukh: that if I obligated myself to give you a lamb, I can also give you not a lamb but money. Why? Because where the object serves as money and not as merchandise, then you did not acquire it; you acquired value. That value I can discharge to you in whatever form I want. Okay? Fine, it looks like we’ll stop here.